fashionRIP: November 2008

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Friday, November 28, 2008

The Verge shoot is on the calendar; December 14th and i am in a pause mode with the RIP until that baby gets wrapped. In the meantime SCAN has reformatted its agenda and i have applied to volunteer there in order to cover classes in Final Cut. I learned the Avid Express software a few years ago but am rusty, so this is a great op and a necessary part of any shoot. The edit shapes the art of the story.

Friday, November 21, 2008

Fremont Abbey Art center

The Fremont Abbey Art Center is helping fashionRIP by letting us shoot the video in their great hall with its old church windows for the unusual price of volunteer hours in a sustainable barter exchange. This is how community action looks and how we can better combine talents and resources at the neighborhood level. i say it is splendid and more people should give it a try. What magic we might achieve as we bridge some of the gaps left from too many middling mens and wimmens and other forms of social divisioning.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

All The London

Fashioning the Future posts are going onto the fashion ethos blog....and then to the Sustainable Style Foundation; that is "where the action is". Oh myo, grade school calling...you see there was this show....
The RIP video is in the works but getting all the elements, human and else to gather together at the same time and place is tricky!

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Victorian Goth Kabuki recyCouture

Looks like a challenge.....sustainable fashion is the new radical chic. Photos/ Make-up/Styling courtesy of Renee....the best! It must be that big cocky hat that fires up my oversize can-do!
As i've said before, fashion instigated this buy and toss attitude; now fashion is obliged to change it. i have a real sense of what is fair and all isn't; not even in love and war. Stupido cliche!

Monday, November 3, 2008

Stills of the RIP

This is a preview of the photographs that will go to the Posers Flickrr site. The characters and costumes will be in the video shoot. The recyCouture dresses are a stand alone part of the installation ....after all sustainable fashion was the seed that grew the project!

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.

fashionRIP