The Craft Craze

All waiting rooms in car repair shops are the same. Outdated sports magazines. Coffee maker with Styrofoam cups. Strange rubber odor. And a television tuned-in to some news channel. My recent trip to a local car repair shop did not disappoint, featuring all requisite elements of the full oil change and tire rotation experience. As I sat, disinterestedly flipping through the pages of a Sports Illustrated circa 2009, I overheard a television segment on the performance of Restoration Hardware in its initial public offering.

The segment included an interview with the CEO of Restoration Hardware, Carlos Alberini, who attributed the success of the company to shifting “up-market”. Whereas competitors responded to the economic recession by slashing prices, Restoration went the other direction, focusing its marketing on expensive furniture consistent with its stylistic mission of providing “authentic” American home goods.

Having walked through Restoration on several occasions and glanced at the price tags hanging from lamps, distressed dressers, and ancient maps, it is hard to imagine there being a huge market for such luxury items. Yet I was reminded on a recent weekend trip that there is demand for products that reflect material authenticity and local craftsmanship—even if they are simply replicas or are made to look “crafted”. The base for this market has widened beyond antiquers, collectors, and snobs. And I believe it will continue to grow as our generation increasingly distances itself from the knowledge needed to actually construct what retailers like Restoration produce en masse.

The Craft Getaway

My wife and I packed our bags a few weeks back for a weekend retreat to Charlottesville, Virginia. We mainly wanted a change of scenery and a chance to soak in the fall colors before they fell to the ground, but we also planned to stop at a few breweries and wineries. Our first stop was for lunch with friends at Blue Mountain Brewery, which was packed from wall to wall with diners and drinkers. Founded in 2007, Blue Mountain has followed in the footsteps of several successful microbrewing operations in the region, structuring their business model around sustainability, local community engagement, and treating beer making like an art form. My friend explained that the original restaurant connected to the brewery was originally quite modest in dimensions. The popularity of the place precipitated a large expansion, which looked to be paying for itself without any issue. On the day we visited, business was booming.

Crowds did not diminish as we ventured out the vineyards. We were greeted at each wine tasting room with large groups of smartly dressed people, all of whom seemed to be visitors to the area. My experience in Charlottesville is but a real-life example of what Restoration and other businesses like it know to be true. There is a consumer craze for all things “craft”, from home furnishings to alcoholic beverages. Since I found myself square in the middle of this craze, I looked inward for possible explanations.

For me, connecting with authentically crafted things is an expression of appreciation. I buy what I cannot create myself but desperately wish that I could. It is true that these things tend to be high quality, well constructed, and tasteful. This makes it easy to justify spending more on them than your run-of-the-mill bookcases and merlots. But the consumer craze for craft fills deeper needs.

We, Knowledge Workers

The reality is that my generation was born into society that does not really manufacture things as it once did. We are outcomes and drivers of the knowledge society, where the primary source of income and economic growth is not what you make, but rather what you know. We are the generation that aspires to be consultants or entrepreneurs in some sense or another. Working comfortably in the realm of ideas, we are highly skilled laborers—on our laptops.

Even as we celebrate our smart phones and relish in our post-secondary education, we inevitably confront the fact that our knowledge is astonishingly specialized and can rarely be applied to creating or fixing real things. We have to find others to fix our cars or remodel our kitchens. Many of these people exist on the margins of the knowledge society, yet remain vital to its functioning. This is not to say that no one in my generation creates anything material, or has zero knowledge applicable to real-world problems. But speaking in generalities, we are beyond a doubt a generation out of touch with tangible things.

The Choice

So we face a choice. We can learn a craft, either as a hobby or as a source of livelihood (if we are willing to assume the risk that accompanies it). Or we can show our appreciation of the authenticity and artistry that goes into making handcrafted goods by whipping out our credit cards. Most of us seem to make the latter choice. The reality is that, unless we can make our craft into a successful business venture like Blue Mountain Brewery, there is a higher value placed on knowing how to edit a website than how to make cabinets. While many of us like to think we are capable of going against the grain and denying economic incentives, we are likely to respond to the version of the good life we inherited.

Our quest for all things crafted will not likely diminish in the coming years. That is, of course, unless we rethink our priorities and recalculate the value assigned to certain skills and ways of knowing. I like to hope that in the future my interaction with craft will not be constrained to items on the shelves of Restoration Hardware. I like to think of a version of myself who can actually make and fix things, instead of a person who merely appreciates these abilities from the sidelines. The out-the-door lines of people in the local wineries and microbreweries of Charlottesville suggest that there may be others out there who feel the same way.