fashionRIP: January 2008

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Victorian Mourning For Species on the Verge

of Extinction

this is the title of my work in progress... the recyked dresses will be featured in a video and if the universe is willing the lot will be part of an installation at Bumbershoot. I say part because some amazing local talents have responded to my queries and will also show....you won't want to miss it!

Welcome to FashionRip

Restylers rip to sew, eco fashion designers use sustainable fabrics and processing, recycouture is one of a kind and usually involves hand or detail work. Recyked is anything renovated from something else.

Those who prefer vintage are fashion aware and appreciate the quality and the aesthetics of the past. The wearers of vintage have always had a stylish foot in sustainability. Thrift store and yard sale finds are great; however there really is such a thing as too much.

Anyone have other terms that they use in this sensibility? Please send them in with the definition so we can all get a nice working vocabulary. To own the language is to own the concepts and a way to maintain a viable structure that will facilitate growth. Its street up, savvy, sane and soon to be soaring as fast fashion falters by default.

Welcome and please let me know if you want to create collaborative crossings with links, pictures, tips and ideas.

Why it Matters

What's the matter with more and more fashion choices?

It sounds good; we love to be able to pick the perfect outfit. You wear it once or twice and then ....what was the real cost here?

Your time to shop and the money spent, not so much ....go a little deeper and consider the fiber source, the dyes and chemicals used, the health toll on the workers, the energy to run the machines, the transporting carbons...and now it just takes up closet space. But so what? It's been going on for-almost-ever and you didn't make the rules.

In fact we are told this is what a "healthy" economy looks like.

You will recycle it after all, give it to charity or your sister. This is more transportation and more release of those greenhouse gases. We are using a lot of our personal energy and the resources of this planet to make, use and dump "trash" Some rags, remnants and tawdry bits will molder for eons in landfills, as nature's microbial actions are hampered by our normalized, everyday toxic lifestyles.

This goes beyond dumps as the breakdown cycle that nourishes the life of this planet has been sorely challenged by GMO crops, fertilizers, pesticides, antimicrobials..RIGHT!!. All the "living better through chemistry" propaganda after WWI and II- AKA how to sell your "garbage," is our legacy. Well no more, not on my (our) watch, we are seeing things quite differently.

As we now carry 298 toxins in our bods that weren't there in the 1930s the toxic residues of normal are haunting us more and more. Ironic, no? Advanced is merely a word.

Go to the So Whats the Point blog in February for the numbers.

fashionRIP posts are copr at time of posting thank you

Extinctions ...So What?

Life evolves, some species survive some don't. We like to allude to Darwin's "natural selection" or Herbert Spencer's "survival of the fittest" because we are so good at reproducing and taking over this planet and justifying that side of our natures. The fact that we are wiping out the food chain by destroying habitat, fouling air and water and generally behaving like arrogant, tinkering idiots, is called business as usual. .....Well I and others are no longer buying that "sell."

We are wising up to the idea that we too, are dependent on these resources. We too, are physically an organic species and we really don't know what little extinction will be the start of the chain reaction that collapses the structure that we too, are dependent on.

Is this the price we are willing to pay for a pair of plastic shoes?

I say no, that despite the focus on the physical, we are more. We are heart and soul, mind, body, spirit. We are born of stars and we can and will leap over this world view based in old, untrue beliefs led by a science of isolation and religions of patriarchal, hierarchical constructs (your basic dominating Dad- with self reflective rights to rule). It is time to come together and heal. To transition into our fuller expectations and open the new possibilities. We are born with genius...let us help each other get to where we all can shine.