candyland

Sugar is my crack.

Seems I'm not the only one jonesing for it. All over New York, signs of candy-coated goodness are sprouting in a riot of sweetness.

Today at the MoMA, Tim Burton's treacly creatures ran amok in the macabre playground of his imagination.

Over at the New Museum, Urs Fischer's gummy sculptures have been melting in gooey splendor.

And the past three weekends, Will Cotton put his surreal candy landscapes where his mouth is, selling scrumptious macaroons and other caloric confections out of the back of Partners & Spade.

The icing on this trend cake is a sugary script that's both modern and retro at the same time – without a hint of saccharine.

Sweetness, like a sucrose version of The Blob, is taking over the city one street at a time. Literally: the newest Billy's Bakery is now a block from my house. Sweet.

(re)imagine that

In case you haven't heard, AMC's new version of "The Prisoner" is not a re-make. It's a re-imagining.

Which makes it very trendy.

As of today, the New York Times has used the word (as noun and verb) "re-imagining" 8,730 times in the last 30 days, according to its own search results. And that's after using it only 190 times in the previous 11 months. What's going on?

I first encountered the word – which, like "ginormous" (519 uses since 1851), I thought was a make-up word, a few years ago. A network had hired me to help guide them through a redesign, but the president found the phrase too aggressive, perhaps tacitly indicting the work that had come before.

I never took the word seriously until last week, when I read that Disney is giving Mickey a bad-ass makeover, "taking the risky step of re-imagining him for the future," according to the Times. (Side note: it's funny when the brand that practically invented Imagination™ feels compelled to re- it.)

The etymology of the prefix re- goes back to 13th century French, where it meant "back to the original place, again" and also conveyed a sense of "undoing." In Latin, it means "again, back, against" and is used to intensify the meaning of the word that follows.

Seems the phrases relaunch, rebrand, redesign, refresh and now, re-imagine are used interchangeably, but people use them to create distinctions along a scale of dramatic change.

So while admittedly imperfect, here's an attempt to provide clarification on the different shades of Re-:

• Relaunch: (n.) a do-over; (v.) to start from scratch; make people forget about the thing that was there before, and attract fresh young people instead of those losers who supported the old brand. Always means a new name, new products, new faces, etc. Ex.: The also-ran Houston Oilers relaunched as the Tennessee Titans and advanced to Super Bowl XXXIV after only 3 years, something the Oilers were unable to do in 36 years as a franchise. If you grew up in Houston, you will share my pain.
• Rebrand: (n.) a makeover; (v.) to shift a brand's position, even when the product is essentially unchanged, welcoming new consumers without scaring away the core in droves. Might include a name change, but at the very least a spiffy new logo. Ex: Philip Morris, the evil tobacco manufacturer, relaunched as Altria, the leader in responsible products for tobacco consumers.
• Redesign: (n.) a new wardrobe; (v.) to enhance or improve an existing position by making it visually more modern and appealing to the existing consumer. Logo is updated, or imperceptibly tweaked so that only design Nazis can detect it. Ex: Tropicana, who successfully confused loyal customers by making their packages look generic. Which one has the pulp?
• Refresh: (n.) a patch job; (v.) to update and add elements to the existing mix. Usually occurs when a the creative team has worked the current package to death, but management doesn't get why a new one has to cost so much. Ex. Oh, never mind. You've no doubt lived through this.

So what about Re-imagining (or Reimagining, minus the hyphen)? Maybe it's best used when selling in any of the above to clients, upper management or board members. Let's hope they're reading the paper.

lumberjacks beware

Even after working in the fashion biz way back when, I've never considered myself a slave to fashion. But I can't help but notice a big new trend – love this season's studs and over-the-knee boots – even more so when it doesn't work for me.

Yes, folks. I'm talking plaid.

Not the cool, modern, Christopher Bailey Burberry graphics, updated and recolored in hot new ways that would make a bagpiper blush. I'm talking horsey, slubby, log cabiney, Bunyanesque flannel – the kind, for a moment, we thought chic through grunge-colored glasses. The kind that can instantly make you feel you've rolled out of bed with the flu. (I'm having flashbacks of a red plaid nightshirt in high school).

Semantics Note: Plaid is not to be confused with Tartan, as About.com clarifies: A regular plaid is an intersecting pattern of stripes running horizontally and vertically. A tartan plaid is an intersecting pattern of stripes running diagonally. (Meaning, tartans are just drunk plaids).

These familiar patterns have a long and emotional history among the Scots, who first developed their signature graphic by region, dyeing and weaving according to local tastes and available vegetable dyes. In the mid-nineteenth century, specific weaves were adopted by clans as signs of heritage and family pride. Call it branding, Edinburgh-style.

But back to the matter at hand: I just can't bring myself to wear plaid. Let's attribute it mostly to the fact that there are, to the best of my knowledge, no Chinese lumberjacks. And unless you're curled up in front of a roaring fire with little else on, it's tremendously unsexy. And the image of a sexy Chinese lumberjack is just... wrong.