Welcome glorious, beautiful and esteemed web visitor, may your stay at the home of Wu and Wu be full of double happiness and splendid astonishment. This is the greeting you see first on the Dumpling Dynasty website – a remarkable voyage into one woman's self-proclaimed dream to be the Queen of Asian Kitsch. And boy, does she succeed!
I have to mention that (once again) Rachel Elizabeth Baron and Alison Bond brought this line of products to my attention, having purchased the astounding travel bag you see above. Made of cheesy but durable industrial plastic, the New Jersey roadtrippers purchased this marvel at Pearl River in NYC's Chinatown.
Note the darling, wide-eyed Asian sailor girl on the bag. The equally wide-eyed fawn. The mysterious lantern with its smiling face (which appears as a striding radish on the reverse side of the tote). These are continuing characters in the stock company created by “super-talented Brit illustrator Fiona Hewitt” and her husband, Andy Tainton. Certainly, the products are made in China but created, illustrated and joyously promoted from East Sussex, UK.
Dumpling Dynasty's “petite delights” are a world all their own – a retro range that's as quirky and charming (and oddly functional) as anything I've seen in a year. It's very sophisticated, possibly the kind of visual humor that takes a sense of humor born and bred in the land of the Monty Pythons.
The illustrations are flawless, one of those excellent adventures in cultural referencing that can be so wryly evocative...like the Chairman Meow work of Kevin McCormick.
Go the the Dumpling Dynasty product page, check out the Bunny Kit as a worthy example: This is a brilliant, brilliant kit with everything you need in it (including the stuffing) to make your own bunny. Plus, to prove we are totally in tune with the needs of the world's greatest creative minds, we have included a beautiful 'the adventures of my bunny' notepad and pencil set.
I suppose marketing a product line like this is classic word-of-mouth, a leading-edge-cool thing that attentive kitsch shoppers like Baron and Bond pick up on without conscious thought. Review the products and purchase them for yourself. Become the first one on your block to visit the “Wu and Wu Wonderland!”
3 comments:
It’s very kind of you to flag us up. We do our best to serve the lovers of kitsch Asian aesthetics who live disparately among humans and their pets. The plastic fabric is called ‘pp’. This one is from recycled pp. Usually we use a non-woven pp which is totally good to the world from the start of its life until its biodegradable end.
I am so happy you included us and wrote such an intelligent and understanding piece.
Kindest regards...
"Inteligent." "Understanding." I can only take some many of these compliments, Andy. But you all deserve the words - you turn quirky into success.
Hi Richard, Thank you very much for your incredible interest in Wu and Wu. What a great write-up on our products.
Here is the fabric description:Non woven polypropylene. Non-woven PP is naturally degradable (it breaks down into small pieces in the ground over time) It is fully recyclable It can be completely incinerated without any production of poisonous substances. The production process is clean, with no nasty by-products - in fact itis a whole lot cleaner and more efficient to manufacture than cotton.
Please check out our website. We may have other collections that might work for your blog. Regards...
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