Kimmi Designs

Kimmi and models at SB Festival 2009

Real clothes were on the main stage of the annual Sustainable Ballard Festival. The (neo) Fashion Show was a collage of work from local designers and innovators. It was full of delightful, fun and functional garb from second use textiles and alt materials.

Kimmi Design showed a formal and feminine collection made from "recycled fabrics, curtains and tablecloths etc."

In the spirit of sustainable sanity, Kimmi Designs soar.

More from the SB show later!

See you at the Festival!

fashion in the park

I will show up with one garment (at least - as model dependency is part of show -ability) and other designers who make clothing to sell and may do so at the fest!

It will be fun to see what the local eco fashion line up will be.

Excess

Success/Excess Quilt 2005-06

is not the answer!
I had another insightful discussion yesterday with a young man who had done some community service work in Illinois for charity (I think it was Salvation Army) where he would watch truck after truck pull up to a long conveyor belt, dump its load of clothing and turn around and go out for more.

At the end of the belt was a compactor that mashed the fabric into bundle lots that were then put back on trucks to be shipped to China. Add up the friggin' carbons! and wonder at the math that creates the illusion that more is better. Gag!

Ok that was only around 85% as some went to resell which is what we think is happening with our tossed wearables because the truth smashes too many sacred golden calves and that raises questions.
(hi, if this is your story i so thank you for sharing and please ask your girlfriend to email me. I have questions about the clothing illusions held by the kids she works with. We can and will do better than this!- if we just try)

London Fashion Week starts

video shot of Kayo Trousers (available to buy) with Manami Vest

and i am excited for my friend Nicola who is launching the debut collection of Beautiful Soul this year. What can i say but "cheers" and as she goes forth with ethical fashion so shall others follow. We can and we are doing better!

what is this?

refashion is to modify
as
recyCouture is to art.

Recycled clothing has become a generic term for all second (or more) round use of garments and other textiles that are re-purposed into clothing.

Recycled actually means to take back to a premanufactured state and then to remake into something else; usually a totally different product.

Perhaps in order to be taken seriously we need to define our work in a more precise manner.

Please vote for fashionRIP Project at Greenwala. This is a no registration required, quick action that you could bookmark and then vote every day til November . Their rules!

Simple Support

Hello,
if you are here- please go to here! to Greenwala to vote for the fashionRIP Project to help the second phase which is to start a small business for street up economics and sustainable development.

The fashionRIP Project has been the creative motivation behind some major breakthroughs in my path and i am experimenting with applying these concepts on a larger scale.

Fashion may look trivial but the fashion reach is mighty and infiltrates multiple industries and issues. Sustainable fashion is seeking to optimize its best, awake from the toxic nightmare it enabled and then free itself.

Seeking to heal the past by staying observant, listening and being respectful of all of our true power and natures is an individual and a cultural pattern that we can develop. To be able to bloom together must be better than this!

Flash Fashion at Fest

local craftng op

NM Opens

got my saddle shoes on and its time to move

in Bellevue, a local turf.

I worked for this company a long time ago at Frontenac Square in St Louis. I got the job because of connections. My late ex-father-in-law was a CEO big shot in the town, so i walked in and had it. So easy, classic to human nature and yet so unfair; for all parties.

Motivated workers were left out and the store had a bored, slightly rebellious salesperson. I even told a few people that they had the same sunglasses at Famous Barr a few yards down the mall for a lot less! The class system restricts access which restricts ideas and though it worked in my favor i knew it wasn't right!

The truth in systems is that they grow to outlive their use and then hang on like demons, cutting at the jugular of advanced solutions.

However, the sustainable fashion ethos is going to march into the Neiman Marcus lair at Bravern and attempt a friendly breakthrough. By writing this, i am forced to proceed with an as yet amorphic plan to enlighten. i have chosen to accept this mission.

It is easier by far to make the necessary noise and feel good about myself- even if it is embarrassing, difficult and awkward, then it is to write a lousy excuse as to why i couldn't. I shall wear something fabulous (perhaps a fine vintage refashion) and the arrogance of rock and self righteousness.

Who is this person?

Tartan Weave

(9/03/09)

"the first tartan ever to be woven in Africa came off the loom yesterday (Ive added a pic on my profile).: carded, spun, and dyed locally from the weavers local flock, without the use of pesticides and no reduction in the water supply the cloth will continue its ethical, eco-friendly trail to be made into garments and accessories by local producers for domestic use and the US schools market. The South Africa tartan will be launched on the 16th. December - South Africa's 'Day of Reconciliation - at a televised reception attended by government ministers and a host of celebrities. The South Africa is the first of 22 'national' tartans being produced for the garment and fashion industry throughout Africa and beyond.
'At last, a rainbow cloth for the Rainbow Nation' (Desmond Tutu)."
David McGill
from excerpt posted on EFF
PS I asked David for some larger pictures and will post asap.