fashionRIP

fashionRIP is a multidiscipline, transmedia installation of chapters, an exploration of perceptions and beliefs. It’s a platform that explores ecosystems health, generative economics, social justice, cultural and creative diversity. Starting with recycouture garments, the story became the Project. It is now an evolving experiment, designed to explore meaningful relationship based constructs that put human potential and whole systems health over the abstract ideas of faux "the real world."

Saturday, May 30, 2009

credit revolution

9/11 memorial art wall under Barneys ad

Before fashionRIP was a project it was a blog for a class at NSCC.

I decided to address issues around fast fashion and how textile production took its toll on the environment, etc. My other big issue at the time was with artists and creative sustainability, as i had noticed how industries gobbled up creatives, used them and then went on. Okay, there was compensation for some of them but the big money was shuffled into the corporate structure and that was considered "how business works".

I noticed in middle school how the fashion industry would take the ideas from the street and plop their labels on...okay, with a few adjustments designed for the broader appeal. Yves St Laurent was the first one that caught my attention as he remade the hippie look into bohemian style.

Getting and building on ideas is a good thing but somehow i think giving the credit back to the street origins when deserving is necessary and important for the development of healthy systems. It only makes sense to embrace the whole.

Monday, May 25, 2009

5th Ave

or was it Madison Avenue, NYC? Doesn't matter if it was Cartier, Winston or Tiffany or another all together...what's inside doesn't appeal to me in any way! Though i do like the peacock graphic and the exterior makes a nice photograph.

Adili eco fashion handed out peacock feather printed bags at the Sustainable Style Summit. One bird representing very diverse concepts and agendas.

ps. I just looked it up and my photo is of the exterior of the House of Harry Winston.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Finish Line in Sight

I am very close to having this video ready for its soundtrack. Now comes the process of asking fresh eyes to view it and gather advice from Bridgett, Cynthia and a few others. It can be hard to hear criticism but i know i need it....and i know i don't have to agree; however in the art of communicating for broad appeal one must disable the defensive ego attack back button and listen from a higher plane. OK its a model to go for....i am trying!

I do believe that this ego defense thing is a big part of why we have gotten trapped in our current model. Learning when to hold firm and when to alter the self is tricky. Experiment and it may shake up the ready made responses we all carry around! and that is a good thing.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Life in DeLays

It looked so easy in my head! When this project was launched i was thinking a few months of work....tops, after the dresses were made. But head sets and tangly lives, the dances of becoming aware and all the strings that need following when communication is the art- its path was/is full of surprise. Finding the magic mix before baby goes public, well it isn't linear, nor simple until it hits that space....then it is beautifully simple.

Time is finding its own rhythm in this journey....the best i have ever had.

I call fashionRIP my baby, but its livelihood depends on an extended family of volunteers, teachers, doting godparents etc. I am ready to find other stakeholders, for the RIP provokes discussions of change in a compelling manner; and deserves a wide audience.

I think as the human population overdose is recognized for the killer it is, there will be more creative parents, parents who partner for the creative thrill, the nurturing, and the graduation of their "spirit children".

Now ain't that evolution style!

Saturday, May 2, 2009

New to View

Anais Nin quote in upper left from banner hanging at NSCC on Earth Day, the Niagara Bar and daffodils are in NYC

The photo slideshow of the Species on the Verge is a good visual overview for anyone new to this site.

I am working on the final edit of the loosely scripted video and then Jaime Robert Johnson will set the score to it. I have learned how important the soundtrack is after being in the backseat of the "Making of the Species on the Verge" video that Bridgett Barker edited for her SCAN producers eligibility. Bridgett was putting another feather on her hat; which is but one of the many hats she wears with talent and joie de vivre.

Music is that which charms the savage beast....i heard that
somewhere, anyway it can also turn that lil beastie on- in the bad way.

Thanks Mr J. for taking on that audio animal.

Success is in the air, like Spring!

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.