Originally published at: Distressing new, high-end cameras to look decades old | Boing Boing
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Ha! This is exactly what came to mind when I clicked through to the Lenny Kravitz camera. When you first look at it, it’s quite lovely, but once you notice how manufactured the distressing looks in detail, the appeal swings the opposite direction.
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The whole idea of distressing certain things just seems odd to me. I once saw two girls wearing the same brand of distressed jeans with identical scuffs and holes in the exact same places. It was really funny to see.
And now for my old man Ted Talk, “Back in my day we got holes in our jeans from wiping out on skateboards and falling out of trees. Back when adventure was reeaaal!”. But seriously, if you want to own a camera that looks like you’ve been shooting photos from the rim of a volcano… buy a camera and go shoot photos from the rim of a volcano! 
I kid. I kid. You do you, it’s cool.
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Give me your camera for a week and I promise you I will leave it looking like a war correspondent’s camera.
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The smart way to do it is by using deliberately but precisely sub-par manufacturing methods to get items that become visibly distressed without falling to pieces. Some fancy denim makers, for example, use fugitive dyes, ring dyeing, and other tricks that authentically but quickly fade.
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This is so distressing.
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I remember seeing “wraps” for expensive cameras and lenses to make them look beat up and cheap - fake distressing for practicality, not for hipster fashion. I wasn’t able to google up an example, though. The only ones I could google are all woodland camouflage rather than camouflage to protect you from thieves.
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Oh, I thought it would be to protect against theft…
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Still better than acid washed.
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Me, I prefer flash powder and glass plates.
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I saved and saved until I could afford to by my first grown up camera many years ago, and the first time I slipped and it gained its first wound I nearly cried.
I want my stuff to look new as long as possble.
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My friend uses a healthy heaping of gaffer tape and other gunk to make his cameras a little less tempting for thieves out in Asia. His new gear looks aged.
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Me too, and I’ll have you know the termite holes in the camera body were acquired naturally.
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I can’t help it – Every time I read the headline, I see “distressing” as an adjective and not a verb.
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I don’t mind this. It doesn’t affect the performance so why not? Modern Fujifilm cameras already have a retro aesthetic (especially the silver and black versions)…
…so why not take it a step further?
Another reason is that the camera appears less valuable to potential thieves
This was my first thought. What looks at first glance like a battered old film camera is surely less appealing to thieves.
I’m torn. Scratch that; it just rubs the wrong way.
ETA I’ve always loved things with wear marks, strapped together, quirky operations, and klutzy repairs. It took Hey Rosetta’s album Kintsukuroi to wonder what that meant, and I discovered Kintsugi and Wabi Sabi. That others have created philosophy around this astonished me, and that others don’t see it is sad. But perfectly repeating imperfections is not Wabi Sabi.
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If you’re into Wabi Sabi, you might also enjoy the aesthetic concepts of 幽玄 (yugen: profundity, the beauty inherent to ambiguity or mystery) and 物の哀れ (mono no aware: a poignant sense of nostalgia or the ephemeral, a yearning or wistfulness for something that one cannot even quite define from the past).
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I just had a kickstarter idea: gloves made of that weird fabric they use for fancy sander discs. Wear them all day! Distress everything you touch, fast but authentic!
Like the below, but… not so much.
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I saw someone trying to sell cases of similar gloves, but made with generic Scotch - Brite mesh glued to them, for dish washing. The guy was trying to unload thousands of of pairs of them, saying you could make money selling the awkward gloves that clearly nobody wanted for dish washing. But if you sell them as distressing gloves! Way hipper.
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