What could you write about at your Lolita bed/desk?
In the United Kingdom of the aliterate, the Wikipedia reader is king. Woolworth's has pulled the Lolita Midsleeper Combi, a writing desk/loft bed for young girls, after a heated, if half-informed, discussion on RaisingKids.co.uk. Like many of the outraged moms online, the Woolworth's rep confessed that they had to look up "Lolita" on Wikipedia to see what all the fuss was about. "We will be talking to the supplier with regard to how the branding came about," he concluded.
The Lolita Midsleeper Combi is from Scandinavian House Ltd, a Leeds distributor who works with Thuka, a Danish private label manufacturer of exciting, modular "themed beds."
Woolies sold the £350 bed as "the perfect space-saving solution for your child's bedroom," which is technically true. But is also misses Nabokov's whole point: the perfect [sic] space-saving solution is to have your step-daughter sleep with you.
[raisingkids.co.uk via mefi, thnx dt reader sara]
Google cache of the Lolita Bed product page at Woolworths [woolworths.co.uk]
It doesn't bother me that they named the kid's line Lolita, but that they named the adult bedroom set the Humbert, now that's disturbing.
It's the "themed beds" bit that pushes it over the edge. Just naming it Lolita, well, that could be an unfortunate oversight, but if it's a Lolita theme then we're well into the land of creepy.
Thanks, shannon, I needed a laugh
Lolita or not, I'd dig that for our girl if it were available in another color.
Marya, check out Berg Furniture. They make a bed with similar use of space and very cool steps going up to the platform bed. We're considering it for our daughters. And since it's an American product they have avoided that whole Scandinavian tendency to give people's names to furniture.