Rock the frugal fad.
Start by stocking up on half-off holiday merchandise, like the Thomas Paul “Matroyshka” boxed set:
Thomas Paul takes a punchy graphic approach to the matroyshka (Матрёна) dolls. The first Russian nested doll set of the sort was carved by Vasily Zvyozdochkin from a design by Sergey Malyutin, who was a folk crafts painter in the estate of Russian industrialist and patron of arts Savva Mamontov. Maliutin’s rendering was inspired by a set of Japanese wooden dolls representing Shichi-fuku-jin, the Seven Gods of Fortune. In 1900, Savva Mamontov’s wife presented the dolls at the World Exhibition in Paris, and the toy earned a bronze medal.
In design, matryoshkas are also used metaphorically, as a design paradigm known as the “matryoshka principle” or “nested doll principle”. It denotes a recognizable relationship of “similar object-within-similar object” that appears in the design of many other natural and man-made objects. This structure is employed by designers in applications such as the layering of clothes or the design of tables, where a smaller table sits within a larger table and a yet smaller one within that.
Capitalize on the matroyshka’s moment, and save a chunk of capital: a boxed set of the cards goes for only $10.
