Karl Lagerfeld Living Small(er)

Fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld has recently taken several steps toward living small. He told German weekly Die Zeit, "I have moved to a smaller house in Paris, and I don't fancy having as much staff now."

The 75-year-old has even purchased a quaint historic home in Lake Champlain, Vermont, where he plans to shoot the next Chanel campaign. Mr. Lagerfeld called the home "not giant," and commented, "I love it. It's very Emily Dickinson...In fact it's almost Puritanical. For me it's a new form of modesty."

Clearly Mr. Lagerfeld understands that one needn't be small in order to live small.


Spiegel Online, via Fashionologie.

Remote Control Car Out-Performs Mini-Cooper

Some small living skeptics believe switching to an energy efficient car means sacrificing performance and power behind the wheel. Recently, however, a young fellow named Andy Moore effectively laid to rest such claims when he pit his remote control car against a BMW Mini Cooper. Despite its exponentially smaller size and its electric (as opposed to gas) power source, the tiny HBI-Nitro3 left the full-sized Mini Cooper in the dust:



With the economy in turmoil, electric and hybrid-electric vehicles are finally getting the attention they deserve, but we still have a long way to go. The automobile of the future will, of course, still be much larger than the HBI-Nitro3, but it will also be much smaller than the Mini Cooper, since it will be designed for people who are less than four feet tall. 

With smaller size comes greater fuel economy, and we at CSL are eagerly anticipating what the major automakers have in store for us.

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989): A Live-Small Manifesto

The 80s were good to Rick Moranis. He was happily married, and had hits with such films as Ghost Busters (1984), Little Shop of Horrors (1986), Space Balls (1987), Ghost Busters 2 (1989), and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989). The 1990s, however, were a different story. In 1991 Moranis' wife succumbed to liver cancer, and in 1992 he decided to reprise his role as Wayne Szalinski in the box-office flop Honey, I Blew Up the Kid. From there things didn't get any better. In 1997 Moranis again reprised his role as Wayne Szalinski--this time in the straight-to-video Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves. The final nail in the coffin? Perhaps.

Although the second and third installments of the Honey trilogy certainly mark the violent downward trajectory of Moranis' film career, the first deserves more careful attention. If there's a lesson to be learned from such a delightful family film as Honey, I Shrunk the Kids--and we at CSL believe there is--it's that living small, though sometimes alienating, is the most economically responsible way of life. For proof, one must look no further than the scene in which the kids stumble upon a cookie in the yard, or the scene in which Nick Szalinski finds himself floating in his father's bowl of Cheerios. Their reduced height makes the food appear immense, more than a single tiny person could eat in a lifetime.

To be sure, the height reduction featured in the film is extreme and entirely unrealistic, but the central message is clear: reduced height means less food, which in turn means less money and less waste.

NBC's Brian Williams and Chris Jansen on Living Small

Downsizing: 154 Square Feet of Bliss

At last, the mentality of "bigger is better" is losing its momentum, especially in the struggling real estate market.

Bill and Sharon Kastrinos of Calistoga, California, have readjusted their lifestyle as the economy has headed downhill. After living in an 1,800-square-foot house, the Kastrinos spent $15,000 on a 154-sqaure-foot home. This new, very simple lifestyle has helped them cut living costs and minimize their living. These extreme actions might just be the solution we need during an economic recession. Smaller is indeed better.

The Kastrinos 154-square-foot home.

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Project Live Small's Mission

Most people today are not taking the steps necessary to preserve our world for future generations. By continuing on our current path we are creating a legacy of a declining economy and are carelessly wasting precious resources.

The Coalition for Selfless Living (CSL) envisions a world with abundant resources, a strong economy, and without overpopulation.

The mission of Live Small is to achieve CSL's goal of curtailing the imminent decline of our environment by genetically engineering the world's population to consist solely of little people. With smaller people we can have a smaller environmental impact and a positive influence on the global economy.

Live Small advocates research for isolating growth genes so that we can eventually engineer future generations to reach an average height of four feet.

A small difference can make a huge impact.