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."

Monday, June 22, 2009

If Wishes were

Horses, i would be riding the black stallion i pretended to be when i was 8.

I am not sure what that means but my head is in the clouds one minute and freaking the next. Why?

I am speaking in the pro mode for the first time, in London, to start off the Eco Design Fair East opening night fashion show and party.

Now i was into lining up speaking presentation gigs for sustainable fashion but i had planned for a soft entry.

My plan was to start at Seattle Central Community College; a school i was familiar with and where i thought i would do an interactive lecture in order to get feedback, ideas and some polish.

The universe however has a better idea and this rather amazing and quite beautiful opportunity arrived instead. I must be ready for it, even though it feels a little like being pushed out of the nest.

I am leaving Thursday early a.m. and will post more from London if all works out with my new little Aspire netbook.
PS i am naming names because information comes from everywhere.....validity is another topic!)

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Where's the fashion!

fish with glamorous sequin scales

too cool rayon

Vintage fabrics have the greatest prints. The old rayon was fabulous, cool to the touch, great body and not ironing needy like the rayon revival fabrics of the 90's . What happened?

The 50s fish print on barkcloth is a closeup of a sundress that makes me think of the Pike St Market fish tossers and a trip to Arizona.

Vintage clothing should be cared for then passed along as is a most sustainable form of fashion....and retains value. That is important now as i am raising funds for the next part of the fashionRIP Project.

Anyone have a warehouse to give me? One that can be an experimental makeover for a sustainable work/live space. Hey talk to me! An experiment in an experiment, how fun is that!

Friday, June 5, 2009

wrap it up

i am made of plaster and so carefree

The video has been sent to Springfield, MA. for its audio track.

In the meantime i had to redo the entire project because when i made a rough cut dvd to go with a Final Cut Pro project -"Making of the Species on the Verge" - my Final Cut HD Express project was re-sized into a mini black boxed image and then that version was accidentally copied back to my portable hard drive.

In the "it happens" column of apparent crap, this is a good addition. However i made a new project with virgin clips and am almost back to where i was. The plus is that i am really learning the software, explored several possible solutions and am now cleaning up the timeline even more as i am less in love with it. i have gotten a bit jaded and need to back off!

Funny how emotions can play such a part in life; its too bad we are not as well versed in them as we are in technology. A by-product of our cultural focus i suspect.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

doors slam

photo from the # 7 bus

i had a few days of doubt and pain, wondering why i care so much about the issues being addressed directly and subtly by the fashionRIP Project. Why continue when i am not getting paid, when few understand and when the fog of ignorant bliss can be so thick?

fashionRIP started with the dresses and as a comment on the unsustainable (and full of bad habits) fashion and textile industry. Since then theRIP has grown into its present form of expression. It is an elaborate communication, striving to tell the story of present truths and dispell the delusions that cultures struggle under because their concepts are familiar and "owned" rather than seen for their temporay quality. Why is that?

How do really good, well minded, intelligent people fail to see this prison? The cultural brainwash is a big carrier of these diseased concepts and though it constantly shifts to absorb new ideas (after the wall of denial crumbles so much that it must!) it appears to me as a huge collection of distortions based on a violent childhood (early history is full of bloody gore).

If we can accept that we are bruised, forgive the past for its ignorance and shift our energy and action into the direction we really want to go.....we have already started the journey!

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.