| If you're a lover of kitsch, you can't help thrilling to such items - none more exquisite, perhaps, than the gas fire disguised as
flickering coals in a grate. So-called people of discernment, however, usually find them in poor taste. But after a few years have
passed, these objects of derision become antique skeuomorphs, known in the trade as "kidons", or even "kidonskis"
(as in "a load of old kidonski"). Then people of discernment fall all over themselves to acquire them. These days, you'd have to
get up early to find an early imitation amber bakellite bracelet at your local car boot sale.
Some kidons, instead of imitating a more humble material, try to pass themselves off as a more luxurious one. Markesite, for example, popular in the 30s and 40s, was paste dressed up as diamante. Now it has become so fashionable again that you can buy reproduction markesite pieces, presumably known to the cynical dealer as kidon kidonskis. |
