Ideas and images have the strange quality of just floating off into widespread community use. Sometimes.
The photo on the right is a neckpiece that my partner made while in Japan this summer, in June and July. It is about 18 inches around, made of her favorite small pieces of old Japanese fabric, stuffed with cotton. You are seeing it only four months after the first one was made.
My guess is that you will see a commercial version within two years. My partner had never seen anything like it before she made her first one.
Since she made these pieces (she made four) she has been wearing them. Over the past three months, more than one hundred people have gone out of their way to comment; in airports, on planes, in coffee shops and restaurants and even in high fashion stores. People we know to be Jews and Scots often offer the compliment “we should market that.” Quilt makers often say “I’m going to do that.”
The reason I think this particular idea will take off and reach the commercial market is that it is a synthesis of my partner’s mind. First she has many pieces of small fabric that she loves and saves. Second, she conceived of a new way to wear them, that is easy to make without a sewing machine, as opposed to a more common quilted creation of a skirt, cap or scarf, Lastly, by using simple shapes she was able create an elegant model with a wide range of potential variety.
We shall see if this becomes a common piece of clothing. I think it will, based on seeing several dozen previous idea-images be absorbed by the social commons. No, I don’t think there is a viable way to turn this into intellectual property. Unreproducible art, yes. But the idea will be copied widely.
(A photo of all four pieces is on my website.)