fashionRIP: May 2008

Thursday, May 22, 2008

DIY Re-Fashion

Ready to rip; but a little timid? Try a class in Recycouture or start with learning some basic sewing skills. New classes will be forming in July. Check out the FashionEthos blog Summertime Sewin' for more info.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Mother's Day

In 1872, Julia Ward Howe tried to start a Mother's Day for Peace. A year later (June 2, 1873) women in 18 cities across America participated. The holiday was honored by women in Boston for another decade, but it phased out after Howe stopped funding it.

Anna Reeves Jarvis started Mother's Work Day to raise awareness of bad sanitation in West Virginia. Her daughter Anna Jarvis took on the mission with added agenda in 1912. Her efforts met with "success" when West Virginia adopted an official Mother's Day . Then two years later(1914), Congress passed a Joint Resolution. It was signed by President Wilson which established a national Mother's Day. However it emphasized the role of women in their families - and not, like Julia Ward Howe's campaign, in the public arena. (True Woman ideals)

Never a mother herself, the celebration of Mother's Day was Anna Jarvis’ lifelong mission. As the holiday expanded, Jarvis became dismayed by its commercialization. "I wanted it to be a day of sentiment, not profit," she is quoted as saying.

In remembrance of all great women,

Happy Mother’s Day

for it isn't the birth. its the caring

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Choose to Evolve

I wonder how many creative, intelligent people take some refuge time in the left brain? It seems to be a good way to get the hemispheres communicating - a way to balance.

If that is true then the vice versa would probably be true as well. Whole brain = whole thought = wholistic.

Sustainablility and ecosystems are wholistic expressions that smash into the old Industrial Age concepts. The narrow and singular can't embrace open, complex, wondrously intricate and harmonic ideas of "the next." The planet is one big ecosystem that we are a part of and despite our vanity, we are expendable and given that ...I should think we shall learn to play nice with the whole package as well as with each other. I suspect our true hearts are born into it, we just get sidetracked.

P,S. Don't blame a dinosaur for thinking like a dinosaur; pity the critter but don't let it bully you... It's a mere remnant of dying ideas.

Monday, May 5, 2008

Real Art

I love this piece but don't know who created it. If anyone knows please tell me and I will give them the credit they deserve!

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.