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."

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

See it in Seattle

Seamless in Seattle reader's poll is a nice way to show you support local design.

Seattle Magazine says it is the best year ever as 38 designers entered. Now showing!

Saturday, April 24, 2010

looks like rainbows

i exist, i am, that is all i know, everything else is a belief

Waterline skirt and top. A 2007 Greenfest banner makes the front piece & the flouncy part of the skirt has fabric strip weaves; feminine but not too cutesy. a skirt for courage and compassion.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

PVC in Raingear

rainshedder applique remixed in photoshop

"Phenols, phthalates and phytoestrogens are among chemicals known as endocrine disruptors, which interfere with the body’s endocrine, or hormone, system.....Some are used to increase the flexibility and durability of plastics such as PVC, or are included as coatings on medications or nutritional supplements to make them timed-release."

According to a report from the SWHR "....phenols, phthalates and phytoestrogens, —in young girls may disrupt the timing of pubertal development, and put girls at risk for health complications later in life. The study, the first to examine the effects of these chemicals on pubertal development, is currently published online in the journal of the Center for Health, Environment and Justice

According to PVC. org
"The functional qualities of PVC make it a great material for protective clothing outdoors. It has long been the material of choice for children's rainwear, but is also put through more demanding tests through its use in protective work-wear. At the other end of the clothing industry, PVC has played an important role in fashion design for many years. From its early applications in the 1960s, PVC has grown into one of the most fashionable materials to make a regular appearance at major fashion shows around the world."

PVC eventually breaks down and the phthalates are ending up all over the place; so even though your child isn't chewing on raincoats ...phthalate exposure is a big risk.

This is a problem we can do a lot about. Stop buying it and tell your retailer why.

Spread information daily...word of mouth is the new/old media!

Saturday, April 17, 2010

sustainable seattle

rain gypsy

Clean Water going going gone...skirt

Rainshedder skirt

Took that leap over the draining "argument to limit" that attempts to confine me to inertia and safety...that comfort zone of simulated death(?) hmmm.....

Point is, i sent photos of the Waterline chapter of fashionRIP Project to the Seamless Contest at Seattle Magazine.

i never had the mass market concept and sold only a few garments in stores- boutiques under the Pike Place Market and on Capital Hill. Custom clothing appeared safer- it was sold before it was started. All this means that i'm way under the 5000 garments sold to qualify me as an Emerging Designer.

Is Seattle open to recycouture in the mainline? stay tuned.

Friday, April 9, 2010

the Waterline chapter

Springing ahead despite the weather. Water color blues and light fabrics are pulling me.

Water is a huge issue but don't just trust me, listen to Sandra Postel -a Post Carbon Institue Fellow and think for yourself.

The waterline skirts will be featured in an afternoon event at the NW Center. I will be leading a discussion that starts with the skirts former lives on April 23. I hope for an inter-generational, multi sexual mix to gather for a this focused conversation all around fashion and refashion. It will be a great way to learn a lot about each other and the recent history of "dressing" The how and why we wear what we do intrigues me Its a fascinating way to undress (address) sociology, anthropology, cultural mores etc.

Please check with the NW Center for more info.

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.