The dodo is history's favorite cautionary tale: a bird so sure of itself that it never saw the obvious coming. The Dodo Collection gives that old legend one new star, Donnie Demento, a small, stubborn, magnificently coiffed bird who has clearly heard the warnings and filed every one of them under fake news. He works alone, and he takes up the whole room anyway.
The hair arrives first
Before you notice anything else about Donnie, you notice the hair. It is an enormous cloud of tight orange curls, a full crown of it, sitting on a bird who is maybe knee high. It frames his face like a lion's mane that wandered onto the wrong animal. Somebody spent real time on that hair, and Donnie would like you to know it was him.
The face that has made up its mind
Under all that volume sits the scowl. Heavy brows pulled down hard, a big hooked beak, and the narrowed eyes of a bird who has already decided you are wrong and is waiting politely for you to finish talking. He stands in a little patch of grass with his dark wings pinned at his sides and a long red tie hanging straight down his chest, as if the meeting could start at any moment and he intends to be in charge of it. It is a tiny, furious portrait, and the details are what sell it: the scuffed tail feathers, the planted feet, the tie that is just a bit too long for his frame. The lettering underneath is plain orange and says only his name, because Donnie is not a bird who shares a caption.
For the friend with a dodo in her life
Everyone knows a Donnie. The uncle who is certain about the weather, the coworker who explains your own job to you, the neighbor who never, ever reads the manual. This design is for the person who watches all of that with a raised eyebrow and a perfectly straight face. She is the one who will wear Donnie Demento to brunch and wait to see who gets it, and the ones who get it will laugh first and ask where she found him second. History tells us the dodo did not survive its own confidence. Donnie has read that chapter too, and he is still sure it was about somebody else.
Written by James. Thanks for reading.
