A Stand

AGAINST MEDIOCRITY

Have you ever looked up at the vastness of the sky and felt like you were made for something so much greater? Like you were connected to a primal cosmic energy that was full of potential?

And the realisation hits. How small we are living.
Day in. Day out.

Because I was brought up to question everything, I wanted to know WHY?
Why do we all live in houses that look the same?
Why do we keep re-using the same names for brand new people?
Why do we become the stereotype we see on TV?
Why are we not questioning axioms which are centuries old?
Why do we continuously consume items from a mass-manufactured conveyor belt, which has no significance to our identity?
No meaning. No soul.
And no acknowledgement of our values.

Does this allow us to enjoy happiness in full freedom or is security more important, even if it costs you your authenticity?

I was completely disillusioned at how blindly we follow suit.
At how homogenised the details of our lives are.

My frustration turned into a philosophical quest.
I believed we were born with so much untapped potential.
That we were never made to be average.

I turned to books.
Nietzsche, Goethe, Jung, The Vedas and many more.

I wasn’t alone in my thinking.
The world didn’t have to be a straightjacket affair if we didn’t want it to be.
And the biggest oppressor was not an external power.
It was our own mind.

Like robots trapped with hard-wired reflexes, in a make-believe world of every day status quo.

When I spoke about stepping out from the sidelines, breaking down barriers and limitations, and not settling for mediocrity, my excitement got other people excited too.

Now I had a vision of a world in my head and I needed to create it.

You might assume as a designer, I would begin this process with design.
But the very beginning, was the word.
And the word was WRECKREATION.

Thus the WRECKREATION ethos was born; to WRECK stifling doctrines and to CREATE your own world, overthrowing mediocrity and establishing a firm belief in the individual.

Because in order to create, we often have to partake in destruction first.
Whether that be a preconceived belief system or physical materials, remoulded and reformed.

The story that I wrote next, would become the foundation of every design that was to follow, and the heroes, I named, ‘The Wreckreators.’

They were to become the Archetypes; the embodiment of a brave spirit who is not willing to settle and conform, but rather defy archaic dogmas holding them back.

Their aim: to inspire others so that they may see the restraints which had kept them unable to fulfil their true aspirations, had been illusory all along.
A Wreckreator is our Higher Self, our truth, our integrity.

It wasn’t until I laid this groundwork, that I began to visually give form to the world I had envisaged.

Although I had always created my own clothes out of necessity because nothing in any shop ever resonated with me, I now knew what I was meant to do with this skill.

And it wasn’t to work for another designer or high street dictator.
I tried that.
I even tried costume.
But having to adhere to a definitive brief was like being pinned to a corkboard.
It stifled creativity.

The only place I felt at home was amidst petrol fumes, spinning tyres and the growling engines of super and enhanced cars.
They came out of the factory as standard and were modified to be the best version of themselves, in performance and style.

They did not conform.
They were meticulously handcrafted.
They were custom-built to emphasise the seamless relationship between the car and its driver.

And they were seriously FUN.

I had found a culture which had the stamina and courage to soar higher and higher.
A high-octane adventure which incited me to create as much as the philosophical musings I had delved into, of the victorious stories of characters with great strength who stand up for what they believe in and live their ideals.

A defiant stand against the status quo.

I aim to give this idea a new form.
Artists may use paint as their medium.

I use clothes.

Sally Smallwood
Founder & Chief Wreckreator