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, September 26, 2009

On to the show

Ballard Window dressig
-distortion courtesy of nature, glass and the observer

we will go!
It is 6 AM and all is better than well.

Looks like 3 wonderful people -Laura, Paige and Emily -will show up to wear dresses from the "Species on the Verge" collection. (there may be more, so i am packing extras! Mom is riding back-up and TG!)

As this festival in the park cannot replicate the set ambiance, i asked the models to to do their own make-up (with emphasis on more) and to wear black shoes or boots. We meet up at noon ...i have no idea how this will play but i like the suspense .

Surprise is a risk that i am seeking more often. I think it's to offset the control (power) issue, the action consequence system of mechanical devices and religion. Control is and is not true (at the same time).....i love that dischord in sanity!

Friday, September 25, 2009

Fashion at Sustainable Ballard Fest

theme grows and surface changes

Well the show is on as Beth has worked to find models, set up a dressing area and make flyers....the woman is an appreciated do-er that helped make it worth the designers time to participate.

The weather looks great and the festival pulled good crowds in previous years.

The fashion bit is from 1-2 Saturday on the main stage in the park across from the Ballard Library. The park has a name but i still smart from the "Grindline Skatebowl tear down" episode of 2005.

i want to show a few dresses but the models aren't confirmed, however there are several product designers that have more incentive for this kind of event. I am looking forward to seeing their work.

I am wearing a fashionRIP prequel piece from the symbols, signs and spirit collection...
and after ripping off the jacket sleeves i may toss that on too.. Everything changes!

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Hint Mag blocks

ooooohhhhh how scandalous!

recyCouture photos from posting "Sorry, the following photo submission to Hintmag.com was not accepted. This may be the result of unlawful or objectionable material in the photo or description. We encourage you to try again. Hint

Species on the Verge video still deborah

I wrote and asked them to explain. Will they reply? Stay tuned!

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Bus Stop

46th and phinney

fancies.
Had to try to win a Metro bus pass by doing a video tagged "Dump the Pump" that went to Youtube last night just a few hours before the deadline. Since i used a little 5 yr old Pentax camera that had a video option i was leery of the results.

Well there is some pixelation polka going on but the stills look fabulous.

No matter it forced me to learn a bit about Premiere Pro that has sat on my computer since i bought it (5 years ago!) Some things take time and motivation. Now i am actually giggly....liking the software and better that i finally did something with it!

I am sure this has some deep relevancy....hmmmm.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

what we see

"Species on the Verge" video still
of viva la evolucion dress

Fashion is like an iceberg. Most people just see the tip of it and yet under the surface there is a huge destructive industry that is hard at work pumping out mounds of product under some (not all!) intolerable conditions in a race to sell as fast and as many items as possible and then to have them appear as outdated as soon after purchase as possible. This is necessary in order to create desire for the products of the next season. When stuff sells, people have jobs and the economy looks good.

Throwing barely worn clothing out is bad form, so now we donate them to charity or swap. This is good intermediary action but we need to look deeper.

The economic strategies of the world we live in; the world we make real by being part of and are educated to keep its systems running- that world is in need of major overhauling. It is not the best economic system possible and we can certainly come up with a better one if we give ourselves permission to explore the possibilities.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Sending Forward

"never forget"

and the beat goes on

Had another selling weekend for the fashionRIP Project and sustainable ideals everywhere.

I have been consistently surprised by these "open house" sales that started in May! The conversations has been stimulating and educating. It morphed into an experiment on how to explain and promote the project and what it stands for. This has been a major task because what "i see" is a 5 d plus picture and translating it into words .....well still a work in progress.

Then a returning guest shows up sporting an item she purchased at the debut sale and it all makes sense. Not in some literally translatable fashion but in the context of the whole and it is sublime!

PS the photo caps have links with visual aids....the better to message you, m'dear!

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Tee Tales

I have been in stripey tees for a long time. This is a recyCouture update on the theme below.
(Thanks mom for keeping a lot of photos)

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Simple Support

the future is ours and yours

Nudges today - please go to Greenwala and vote for the fashionRIP Project.

It's a harmless, no register (you can bookmark and do it daily even!) way to help support the second phase of the Project. Phase 2 of the RIP is to develop a small business that supports local artisans and sustainable development in an experimental concept of how culture can be recreated. It is the many people who have helped this Project that inspire this leap. We can and will evolve into our best natures.

Please go to the fashion ethos blog for the weave.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

fashionRIP Project

detail of the bottom of a recyCouture dress for "Species on the Verge"

in Greenwala contest. Please vote as you do not need to register and it will only take seconds. In fact you can vote daily and they all count.

Though the fashionRIP Project is an all volunteer sustainable art piece intended as an alt communication, it is also a model for the bones of a business.

Sustainable economics need to experiment with ideas and the RIP is on a road of discovery that will lead to applicable solutions. I am working on it as the product is more than a commodity and a service, it is about process and workshops...it is about the real lives of people who are stakeholders - long and short term. It is also about changes that dynamic concerns utilize to become sustainable entities that evolve as nature intended!

What a mouthful!

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Social Justice/fair trade

BluMeadows on the music

Fair Trade is a Social Justice issue; for commerce and humans are tied despite the attempt to disconnect the humane from the statistics.
We humans are the consumer, the market, the labor, the management, the security, the talent, the masses and the elite. We are human resources-a commodity to be used, often defined by the education that fills us with the data deemed necessary to function within a small area of the cult (root of culture no?)...lotsa titles and roles, oh my!

The myths of our culture are being written daily.

The sad part is that so few recognize the fact that it is only as true as the energy we give it to maintain itself. Yikes!

So my next chapter explores social justice here in Seattle and the school and fort takeovers of the 70s (just) and 80s (not so very fair). Collective energy is powerful!

Stay tuned, it is bound to be a bumpy ride through local history with some great recycouture garb to pretty it up.

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.