Kondo’s new store proves decluttering isn’t her goal
After guilting thousands into throwing out like 70 per cent of their possessions — Marie Kondo has the gall to enter retail? Vinay Menon asks.
Marie Kondo, who catapulted into the global spotlight by telling people to get rid of their stuff, has just opened an online store so you can buy new stuff.
I know. It’s like hearing David Suzuki is the new pitchman for ExxonMobil.
If you’re unfamiliar with Kondo, she is the creepily adorable “organizational expert” from Japan who, as far as I can tell, was sent to Earth by Satan with strict marching orders: Shame the hoarding riff-raff and messy rubes into ditching their crap.
This is her shtick. Get rid of anything that doesn’t “spark joy.”
But the sinister catch arrived this week: So you can buy her new crap.
Oh, Marie. That tiny, impossibly elegant head of yours should bow down in shame. After infiltrating the West via books such as “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” and the Netflix series “Tidying Up With Marie Kondo” — after guilting thousands into throwing out like 70 per cent of their possessions — you have the gall to enter retail?
What’s next? Is Miley Cyrus going to hawk a holiday chastity belt?
Is Justin Bieber going to launch a line of tattoo-removal franchises?
On Wednesday morning, I was browsing Kondo’s online emporium and my side hurt from laughing. This website is literally full of the things she tells people to trash. From the “Brass Tool Holder” to the “Crumb Brush,” from the “Small Bubble Bud Vase” to the “Ceramic Chopstick Rest,” this is the domestic paraphernalia we keep in drawers and maybe, just maybe, break out once every leap year.
There is not one object for sale anyone needs.
I don’t want to call this travel-sized, decluttering guru an avaricious lunatic. But she’s an avaricious lunatic. There is no other explanation. She might as well
donate a truckload of hypocrisy to the Salvation Army this holiday season. Kondo became a household name by poking her snooty nose into our homes and preaching cleanliness and simplicity. She made a fortune by implicitly railing against materialism and consumerism, by embracing minimalism, by encouraging us to only keep things that “spark joy” and have “deep value.”
But what she’s doing now has nothing to do with joy or value — it’s pure greed.
The craziest part of Kondo’s new, Goop-lite store is the insane prices.
Really, Marie? “Leather Room Shoes” that — spoiler alert — are slippers, for $206? Twelve bucks for a “Shiatsu Stick” — a stick?
Then there is the $150 “Brass Mirror” that looks like it came from the Flintstones. Or the $200 “Tea Container,” that is a generic tin. And $98 for a “Balance Gem Water Bottle,” allegedly made in the German Alps, which features an “icy blue pod of sodalite, chalcedony and clear quartz — a blend designed to bring mind, body and spirit into harmony”? You know what else brings harmony? Not getting ripped off by opportunistic phonies.
A ladle for $96? A “Flower Bouquet Tote” — I don’t even know what that is — for $42? “Cotton Rounds” for 20 bucks? An “Everlasting Love Romance Mist” for $27? I’m assuming this one comes with a disclaimer, which stipulates the “everlasting” promise is null and void when your partner asks, “Thirty bucks for … air conditioner?”
The pricey junk Kondo is pushing for a quick buck doesn’t even seem of this millennium. A Small Kaleido Tray? Huh? A Steam Donabe With Tray? What? A Tuning Fork & Clear Quartz Crystal? Excuse me?
Hey, Marie, what need do I have for a tuning fork after you guilted me into throwing away my ukulele? Why do I need expensive trays? So I can display my neurotically rolled socks and underwear? So I can carry an itemized list of all the things you passively-aggressively hectored me into discarding? And if I were to drop $72 on a “trivet,” do you realize I’d have no money left for food?
Is this what you want, Marie? To watch my family starve to death with style?
You know what’s weird? I watched her Netflix series and, as God is my witness, I can’t remember most of it. It’s almost as if this decluttering guru figured out a way to magically put my long-term memory in storage. In the fuzzy macro, all I recall is that she was big on getting rid of everything — and small on the ecological impact.
You ever notice how Kondo hardly ever broaches recycling or donation? You see how she takes a shockingly classist approach to material wealth? You ever realize her method to living your “best life” has more to do with her life?
With this new store, Marie Kondo just exposed herself as a laughable fraud.
She doesn’t give a damn about your clutter. It’s your wallet she fancies.