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PACKAGE VICTIM
A lot of us feel overwhelmed by today’s packaging, but not Mireille Silcott. Actually, she loves the stuff. And she thinks she knows why.

Text: MIREILLE SILCOTT

If the current modus operandi of the packaging world is to give products "soul," then I think I am soul-addicted. Soul Sister Number One. Me and cool boxes, slick bottles, novel containers, resealable whatnots. It’s a close relationship. I’m sold, re-sold and sold the same thing again – as long as the package is neat.

The fixation began years ago in the shower, well before simple brands became the stuff of branding, and feminine hygiene products could sponsor rock concerts. My mother was a clip ‘n’ saver, and the teens’ shower shelf was stocked with the most horrific examples of colossal, never-ending pantyhose-beige bottles; dingy, leaking, water-stained vessels that left Olympic rings of gunk on the side of the tub. I would agonize over those monsters, dreaming for minutes on end of my immaculate, grown-up version of the specimens before me – the future a skyline of clean, elegant containers.

So let me introduce you to my 2001 shower shelf. She has been waiting for her close-up for over a decade. 1 Perlier Honey Body Wash (a hive-shaped plastic pump bottle. Superb) 1 Aveda Brilliant Shampoo (skinny, transparent container. Brilliant) 1 Clinique Light Conditioner (a tower of sleek, minimal modernity. Genius) 1 bath size Roger & Gallet fern-scented soap. [1]

[1] The soaps are a favourite in the dry cupboard. In stark contrast to the current design trend of minimal packaging in the name of Green, not only are these soaps individually wrapped in delicately pleated tissue paper, but they are also encased in an unbelievably thick, glossy cardboard box.

I know that the contents of this pristine smart set are not necessarily better than the old leaky drugstore specials. I saw Fight Club, I’ve swallowed Naomi Klein, the point has been taken. And while lifestylism and branding can be held responsible for the ridiculous notion that the shampoo currently sitting tub-side costs $26, and I bought it, it doesn’t quite explain my chronic state of package-lust.

THERE IS A JOYOUS PANG WHICH SIMPLE, DUMBO CONSUMERISM CAN’T ACCOUNT FOR WHEN MY TRAVEL MINIATURES ALL SARDINE INTO THEIR CASE IN PERFECT, NON-BULGING SEQUENCE. Nor does it cover the satisfaction that greets me when food slides into all the right sizes of Baggies when I pack a lunch. The reasons for this must be a little meatier than I-Aveda-therefore-I-am-cool/desirable/whatever. If not, I’m just a dupe.

My great big theory takes us to the Far East. If you think the West is "over packaged," try Japan. There, even a notebook comes in its own box. Then the shop clerk wraps it with unbelievable care. Packaging is an ancient tradition of the highest order – a Zen thing, even – visible in everything from the compartmentalization of the Japanese garden to the seaweed-wrapped maki on a cute sushi boat. Even a simple, everyday lunch box is boxed, sub-boxed and sub-sub-boxed into tidy compartments meant to spark delight with each consecutive opening.

IN JAPAN, A CERTAIN GODLINESS IS ATTACHED TO THE THINGS THAT THINGS COME IN. SO EVERYTHING COMES IN SOMETHING. So everything comes in something. A parcel sealed with a mess of tape is an insult, while a neat, lovely package is seen as a symbol of both all’s well in the world and all’s well inside this box.

The Japanese are not dummies. They know their world is a bloody mess, that when people are in a constant state of flux and the macro is all over the shop, they will be soothed by a microcosm of ordered compartmentalization. All branding and overpriced nuggets aside, it’s really no surprise that some of us (okay, some more than others) are driven to create a kind of potted order – tangible envelopes in which to store the uncontrollable. It’s not so weird that intricate or shiny containers make me happy and bottles that leak rattle my core.

So yes, it’s a sin to drop a wad on a fancy French body wash when I could be using the money for nobler purposes. Agreed. But it is not a sin to love that body wash because the bottle pumps the stuff out in delicate little no-mess spurts. Hyperbole maybe, but I REALLY THINK MY LOVE OF PACKAGING IS A NATURAL (FINE, MAYBE MILDLY OBSESSIVE) RESPONSE TO THE TOPSY-TURVY UNIVERSE AROUND ME. Honest.

I thought about all of this while walking around Manhattan recently, when I came upon a new store that specializes in selling only containers. There were disposable bags and slick cardboard boxes and bright plastic roundups. The chain, which seems to be spreading rash-like across the U.S., is called Hold Everything. I thought the name summed it up nicely: "Hold everything! I wanna compartmentalize! I wanna be like the Japanese and put boxes in boxes in boxes so all’s well in the world!".

Needless to say, I did some heavy buying. And if by now you are thoroughly horrified by the messy state of my relationship with world ecology, I completely understand. But then, you should see my recycling box. She is a vision of ordered perfection.