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, December 28, 2009

SPL requests

Surprised to find so few co-op business books in the Seattle Public Library. I need to find out how to grow and avoid pitfalls via lessons from other USA co-ops. The Mondragon website is great for inspiration and outline but US policies are not Spains, so i suggested that SPL buy several books in support of the UN year of the co-op...2012. ( Ta da the shift as "predicted' by the Mayan calendar?)

Please go to your library websites and ask for more. Street up ( & grassroots) economics need to start at and benefit the same level, which is the biggest turf so more resources will stay at an equable level.

Photos of Montana skirts will be on the blog soon.

Monday, December 21, 2009

Happy Winter Solstice

recycled rag wreath

directions on the Ethos blog

i have decided to celebrate an original holiday.

Some will call it pagan, but wasn't that just code for outsiders, indys and the others who chose to think for themselves. It also applied to the ancient traditionalists ....as in "it was good enough for my parents so it's good enough for me" and the shamans and priests who were afraid of losing their power. (ergo ego)

From the feminine model of worship, we turned to the masculine but now the partner model is forming.

In honor of this i feel like clearing the clutter and creating some new ways to celebrate this amazing thing called life.

Scolded by Digital Eve

Most boundaries are just made up....

Some remain legit, some are harmful and some are necessary to provide a sense of order in the chaos so humans can function with a degree of "control" This has led to linear logic.

In a linear development we have a hard time connecting peripheral dots....which is why we are in trouble.

Technology is a great tool ....it cannot however, save us or be applied effectively when left in "the box" from whence it came.

We are in a critical period of planet/human evolution and we either deal with it full on and turn a corner (paradigm change) or we fail.

Is this off topic?

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Sustainable Fashion- how one industry is re-inventing itself

Obvious self promo here, but i need to start supporting this work in another manner as i have pretty much run out of things to sell! Book this ultra fab lecture at Teachstreet.com

The dead mic, dark space and no extra lights ( gonna get me some roadies one day!) the awkward set up with the remote on the fritz....all of this couldn't stop Cynthia, Mom and me from going on with the show!

The live event was about 1 1/2 hours long , and could've gone longer as the discussions were still going strong. However it was a classroom setting with time limits. I really love how so many shared information; its such a fun, surprising and intuitive way to learn.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Friday the 11th

Courtesy of the artist and the website.

Sustainable Fashion is ethics over growth and domination of markets...
i mean no one thing can apply to everything, everywhere, all the time.
That's twisted!

Seattle had WTO.

This time the world is gathering in Copenhagen to "solve" another big issue - Climate Change. Today is COP 15 when corporations play to profit from the mess they created. "Our Climate-not your business" is ready to intercede for the people of whole earth.

And this time the people are ready for the justifiers and protectors of passe capitalist values. We are aware that infornmation driven by commerce has jeopardized our very humanity. We know we cannot evolve under the old corporate values because in the end they must value their bottom lines to stay alive and that is not a place where ethics thrive.

Many people enable bad things to happen as they go about just doing their jobs. We are not taught to put the pieces of this puzzle together; to see how we are part of this madness that has imperiled all of us, yet that is the construct! That is all it is; take our energy and our interests elsewhere and a new constuct will replace the old. Simple really!

Unless we allow the Peter Principle on a global scale? YIKES!!!

Friday, December 4, 2009

fashion trashed

for overproduction, over selling and over doing on all points. The industry has a huge carbon footprint, is dysfunctional and needs to evolve. Thats where sustainable fashion steps in to become the hero!

So designers and other humans, the global warming summit meet needs us to be proactive, educated participants in law as the old rule will try to exploit us all once again. Please take a few minutes to view Cap and Trade. thank you

Thursday, December 3, 2009

money talks bs walks

That's an old cocktail cut from my Bahama Underground days of the 80s. Why i am thinking of it now is because i am so dismayed at how few do-ers there are! There are talkers, theorists and writers but when it comes to real economically sustainable re-routes like starting a co-op to buy a space to share for various eco entrees (like fashionRIP Project)...there is nary a show of hands (with cash).

Pooling funds for street up economics is foreign only because we were taught to throw our $ at stocks, making corporations more powerful. Corporations think in terms of bottom lines, HR and growth- an archaic, dehumanizing agenda. (actually a corporation is built of stakeholders as are co-ops -it's the goal that is the dif)

Now add that according to the book Social Intelligence by David Goleman - CEOs are often machiavalian or narcissistic folks. Need i say more?

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.