Deforestation for Fabrics?

 Sacred Trees living for centuries in Woodland Park, my grounding partners.

....."The fashion industry’s unseen assault on the rainforest was first discovered by Canopy. Canopy observed that an increasing area of rainforest in Indonesia was being cut down for the production of fabrics. In 2012 alone, 70 million trees were cut down to create fabrics like rayon and viscose for the industry. These fabrics are used in dresses and skirts, tank tops, t-shirts and suit jacket linings.

Amy Hall, director of social consciousness, told WSAV3, “The current role of fashion in forest depletion is alarming but we know designers and leading fashion houses can make a difference.
 Working with Canopy to address our use of forest fiber, develop mechanisms to ensure our fabrics are free of endangered forests and to craft long-term solutions for sustainable fabric sourcing are the first steps in turning the tide for the world’s rare forests.
".....

Quote from article by Brian Dooling
November 4, 2013

Patagonia and Others Stand Up Against Fashion-Induced Deforestation

  Like all consumer "goods"  are these clothes so "good" that "we" are apparently willing to sacrifice the very means of healthy living on this planet?  How long before that skirt lands in the recycle or trash?  

Until we are taught the madness of the economic ways and means (made up by people, enabled and sustained by mere people) we will remain unempowered and unable to choose in our own best interests.  

We are as abused children, living in a tunnel of misinformation, lies and deceits. For even if that tunnel is satin lined...it remains a tunnel. Information and change of action on said information will help us climb from the tunnel so that we may breathe fresh air again. There is still time, but not as much as you think! So take someones hand and climb together, we can and will do better than this. (Homage to Dr Suess)

Free Energy and Mountain Highs

This video has not been removed by fashionethos, so what "user" is referenced here? The uploader or YouTUBE?

Free energy is like a no-no to big oil, coal and utilities that are ramping up to control and create dependency (control by "need")  Smart meters are one such device-never mind the health risks! Yup that makes sense; oh and that disgusting sound is Big Pharma salivating

("Take Back Your Power" and meet ups are sharing the RFR data and it isn't pretty)

This is (was!) a sweet video on the regenerative capacity of mountain energy and why acting at the level of our knowledge will make a better space for everyone, every "thing."  (if all is more energy than matter, thing becomes a weird concept)

( I didn't have time to check the math or theory so am not sure what triggered the pull down, however it makes me wonder as all kinds of silliness is on the Y Tube with no ramifications) 

It is sad that the most fearful appear to be running the show. Then again if one thinks how what we do colors our world it makes sense.

Military people see the world as a threat.

Government people see the world as something that must be controlled. (as in Manufacturing Consent  by Norm Chomsky)

 Medical people see health problems.

Oil people just want to sell more oli, Apple wants to sell more I Pads, etc. The job, the corporate ideology colors the workers lens.

Artists are still encouraged to reflect on their belly buttons or in social change milieu - to work on issues at the level of the problem -not on total prevention.Acting at the level of our current  knowledge would mean that artists would have to learn at least a couple other fields in order to communicate beyond the individual mirror pattern that was so useful, fresh and rad  back in the day, Now it feels really redundant.

Educators want to share knowledge but are trapped by the system's knowledge and the hierarchical construct that makes turf "kinging" essential for "success."  Competiton has upside but a really ugly downside too! Own it!

Bankers see the world through a financial lens, so the more privatization of commons, the more financialization of life, resources, the more we go along with it- the better. Think how "home" became an investment, how education is represented in earning  expectations, how fashion and dressing for success translates and how valuable is reiterated as dollars and cents.

As banks have a hugely disproportionate hold on the "world" via their ability to create "money" out of thin air, they have an advantage that must be "seen" to be "appreciated" for what it is. Their ability to believe in their own sleight of hand is comical and alas dangerous.

I figure if we understand why we are so hampered in our amazing expert, professional tracks- we might more easily reconcile our differences so we can forgive our errors and move into a quantum opening.  Free energy is a great stimulus.

Evolution, here we come! (check out Gaiad Theory on fashionRIP for more details)

Threads -doc trailer

Here is a great intro for those getting suspicious about clothing, prices, sweatshops and why we all connected to this industry, the upside and downside of consumerism.
   Please watch the  Threads trailer on vimeo here.

Sweatshop, USA

 

As the charitable industrial complex tends to focus its good deeds with interests in so called under-developed countries (who is the judge? am questioning everything these days!

Communication is a difficult thing when off the topics that roll with simple exchanges, polite conversation. The classic top down "we the do-gooder" here to help you "the poor and downtrodden" with a few useful things that actually cost us "nothing" and are great for "marketing"  and PR works like a "business."

Speaking up outside the construct of the agenda makers takes good listening skills (learning!) a lot of research, courage and an ability to step away from ego despite the bruises. It takes extreme heart  to remember the eyes of those you "promised" to pick yourself up and to carry on.

This is some of what sets the sincere activist apart from the controlled to not rock any real boats and to not change the course of the "Takers"  do good set up. A focus on deeds that won't really interfere with  the status quo are the usual foundational guidelines, the old  bandage the wound ignore the cause approach. Therefore these charities act as detractors/distractors, as ways to justify the rape and pillage, kind of like payola..

Human beings that are true to self, attempting to acknowledge their paths and spirits,  are operating from another place, a place aligned with Love.  This creates a huge differential in the quantum field as is aligned with expanding possibilities. This in turn supports diversity and as diversity aligns with healthy ecosystems we are at threshold to a healing dimension that rocks that oldy moldy boat outta the water! ( maybe even before the water is poisoned by fracking and run-off and...)

The Gaid Theory came to me yesterday and is a link to the theory of everything that Lanza wrote about in Biocentrism., even though i have jumped the physics only field from whence the query came.

Details later, writing them down is not nearly as fun as the aha moments that show up. For the record, the Giad Theory is a fun next step that erodes huge amounts of the established mythic construct and reinterprets them from new perspectives. This is part of the fashionRIP Project, where i have been unraveling western culture, keeping the good threads and exposing the rotten ones.

So back to inspiration piece and Sweating Away in the USA, Flor Molina story is is full of the good stuff. Great activists are fighting for others as well as self. This creates the energy that survives the downturns and rides the crests with joy that surpasses the self.  That is really all one needs to know, to start..

How Modern-Day Slaves Become Lobbyists

Lured from Mexico into forced labor at an American factory, Flor Molina’s human trafficking story was typical. What’s remarkable is what she did next.

by Christa Hillstrom

as cited from Yes Magazine. 

To Market, To Market

 

Selling the Sell

or check out the subtle home invaders!

(The Brides Guide was in my mom's library, history is everywhere)

Today's issue: Designing the Housewife or how Marketing to the “lady of the house" helped create the modern "Goodwife." This is about attaching ego to brands in the guise of supporting a woman's sincere efforts to help her family be healthy, happy and successful;  to partake of the American Dream. This is about seduction.

Women were cajoled and trained to really "shop" after WWII. Granted, the whole euphoric "war is over" period did lead to dancing in the streets and a cultural lovefest. North America was on a high and celebration was in order. Ego and systems belief rose to new levels of possibility. Spending was easier as goods that had been scarce now seemed abundant and unending. Consumer economics was part of the new plan and it appeared to be a winner.

Companies saw ways to turn their war making materials into peacetime profits and the future looked bright. Rebuilding Europe and Japan made good diplomatic and economic sense. The over there helped drive the home turf industries, making the case for household or microeconomics and women's spending.

It also makes the case for the "military, industrial (congressional) complex that former President Eisenhower said to be wary of, but highs are not grounded and consequences seemed far away.

Home was the reason for all the fighting. Home was the  haven and havens were about security and comfort. Home was pretty much an answer on many fronts. But by the 50s a new driver was needed to fulfill the economic wet dreams of the financiers and bankers. Freedom from fascism meant freedom to exploit and so it was.

 "Authorities" and friendly persuaders, movie stars and academics all chimed in to help craft and tune the American Dream Machine. And many of those machines were about household conveniences, washers, dryers, vacuum cleaners, ovens, mixers, cocktail shakers and ice makers. Autos were aimed at this new era woman and she enjoyed the "freedom."  Style was stressed and design took off.

Aggressive campaigns hit this booming middle class via the homemaker. Like who would ever think that the red and white checked household staple; the Betty Crocker Cookbook and the later Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook, were really marketing devices, full of processed food stuffs called  "time saving" wonders. I mean i received "Better Homes" as a gift when i married and never thought it a wolf in sheep's clothing.

TV, radio, magazines, newspapers all presented stories of the consumer litany, the mantras of the modern world.  Articles presented information  that was so aligned with ads that an umbrella of sacred consumption covered the lot. All the latest and greatest ‘stuffs” showed women how to keep husbands and children happy, healthy and in good cultural standing. (Wise was also bandied about but the education experts had that domain)

As men went out of the house to go earn "the bread"  the ladies were being shown where and how to spend it. All those modern conveniences left her time for more shopping. Being the good housewife meant dressing the part, so this was not without perks and justifiable ones at that!

These advisory messages were often dressed up to be "about the family."  However it was often more  about acculturation and creating an underlying group think, while sporting individuality and "i did it my way" on the surface, This stuff had/has layers of meaning.

Ingenious, clever and "successful" in its own way, marketers and media rose to new heights on the new hype.  (Though how we can call a concept a success without considering all outcomes, all "life cycle" impacts, damages and dis-ease, is a mystery of financier clout and sleight of hand)

The consumer economic belief is now fairly hardwired into the system. The term sustainable economics is rising (as with public benefit corporations) but sadly, this often just means more dependency on corporations.  as services replace tangible goods; and doesn't change the core processing ideology.

I stand behind the word sadly, as corporate thinking that justifies a focus on profits and the subsequent right to profit, is a unique human form of crazy. We humans are capable of great imagination which created the idea of money, wealth and profit - all the economic "manage and control" devices we have mustered into existence, all about us! That these concepts became "real," so "real" that they now over take the larger realities of planet systems, well that is crazy. 

All the while the very imagination, the very gift of being that thought up the money idea and is at this moment helping many reconsider this whole agenda, well that is the real wealth of the species. Let's not squander it. Let's not blow it. because this time running away from the mess is really unfeasible, not practical and certainly not admirable.

We all deserve better.

Tennessee Clothing Factory

 

Photo: Brian Wagner for The New York Times

This is a great story in "keeping it human" as factory adapts to world of out source and sweatshop norms without losing sight of the larger reality. Yeah for  L. C King in Bristol Tennessee.

Okay and a nod to the New York Times for a real, uplifting and timely story.  People are amazing when supported, encouraged and determined to be ...not just do.

A Tennessee Clothing Factory Keeps Up the Old Ways By CATHY HORYN

Published: August 14, 2013

 

Die for Dyeing

Fashion real costs discussed in this TedX talk.

One thread at a time: Louise Visser and Alice Jones at TEDxNoosa

When what "we" in the so called "1st world countries" accept, enable, promote for a lifestyle that is pushed by consumerism and the financialization of everything; life itself is in trouble. A need to grow, extort , exploit everything and everybody is not a good way to make friends. No wonder we are so unhappy, unhealthy and anxious.

The USA is proving grounds for dis-ease in systems based on archaiac visions of who and what we as human beings are and why we are here.
.
 Maturing as a species means removing our blinders, to stop justifying our actions and getting to "super real" with transparency, respect, responsibility and realization of how all of life interrelates, is connected and health requires diversity, creativity and curiosity. This is good stuff once the hurdle is jumped.

This is how we can reconcile and heal. We have what it takes.

 When we look to the whole as one, it is easy to see the how there is no "over there," no "other"

Helping each other realize the possible is up to each of us.

Thank you

That Sweet AHA

  

Those Toxic Venders

Photo taken at a Northgate professional building where my Dad's eye doctor has an office.  I have put sticky note haz mat posts before but this time i noticed that right across the hall was the Washington Poison Control. 

I rang the bell and the gatekeeper handed me the stickers. I brought up the irony of the GMOs -the corn, soy suspicious wheat, the corn syrups and beet sugars, the snack laden American "diet" of faux food stuffs. She nodded but acted strange, did she have a no comment..or gag order in place?
 SAD!! 

Anyway when i went to put one a sticker on the machine she asked me not to. It seems they got in "trouble" from the building owner when some kids put them on the machines. Coca Cola was next to the "snacks" you know a bag of chips, a candy bar and a drink, call it a meal.

I told her i would remove the sticker after taking the photo, but she said they were too hard to remove. She looked at me, gave me a final, "please don't." and then scurried away behind a closed door.  Wow!

All i can say is:
"Bravo you smart active kids!, you are awake, you get it!! or at least some of you do, and that makes my heart soar.

My dad held up the sticker  and i took the picture. I guess i need to go back to the HAZ_MAT sticky notes as the real "non-profits" are too mired in the system, too narrowly focused to be all that  effective.

Find Your Moment of Obligation

--by Lara Galinsky, syndicated from blogs.hbr.org, Jul 23, 2013

 

People who successfully tackle big social, environmental, and economic problems are driven by what I call a moment of obligation — a specific time in their life when they felt compelled to act. These moments become their North Star; they keep them going in a positive direction when everything seems dark. The obligation is not only to the world but also to themselves.

Activists or social entrepreneurs aren't the only ones who are moved this way. We all have experiences that deeply inform who we are and what we are supposed to do. But only if we allow them to….

We've all been deeply moved by problems in the world. We see that something isn't right, that a community deserves better, or a social injustice needs to be corrected. It could be that something terrible — or even something wonderful — happens to us or someone we know. Perhaps we witness an injustice. Perhaps we simply read an article about one, but something about it moves us as powerfully as if we were the one who wrote it.

Unfortunately, many of us are not prepared to recognize these moments for what they are. As a result, we let them pass by. We chalk them up to emotional experiences or brief blips of inspiration and move on with our daily routine. And we lose out on creating meaningful careers and lives.
Here are a few tips for recognizing your own moments of obligation.

They're strong. You can recognize the moment by the intense feelings it invokes. The moment itself doesn't necessarily need to be dramatic, but what it brings up in you is.

They keep showing up. Sometimes, the experiences will reoccur. You'll notice an issue again and again. Patterns will emerge and you will see that, for whatever reason, you are drawn to delve deeper into this particular issue.

They're personal. The moments are very often personally meaningful. They are connected to your own experiences, or the experiences of people you care most about, the way in which Socheata's moment of obligation was.

They take hold. Finally, they just won't let you go. They scream for your attention, creeping into your mind when you are minding your own business — sitting on the couch, watching TV, or trying to get a good night's sleep.
Everyone is moved this way from time to time, but what sets those who help solve the world's biggest problems apart is the decision to turn that feeling into action. They say, "Someone has to take responsibility for this problem. And that someone is me."

For the full story just click or paste

http://www.dailygood.org/story/488/find-your-moment-of-obligation-lara-galinsky/

Health vs Fashion

Great expose! See the whole of this most fashionable past on.Ecouterre. 

Corset damage was ignored, even as fainting spells rose. Fainting became a sign of feminine delicacy so  symptom relief was sought rather than going for the prevention. (Until some flagrant feminist, some outrageous pioneer of garb said, "Wait a minute, girding my torso is torture and i won't take it any more!" Does this sound familiar?

What we do for "fashion" is often weird.

Loving the creative, fun, multi aesthetic variables still holds my style attention even as i try to unravel the good from the bad- in an attempt to not throw another baby out with that bathwater ( Grey water needs a re-use there too!)

After seeing Psywar last night at Meaningful Movies, i understand how women were sold the "look" of the high and mighty and even a lot about the "why."  However i fail to understand why the wealthy women would start or adapt to the "look" created by X if it hurt.

The idea of the expert over rules the good sense of those iin power or X had some kind of hold on Y the wealthy fashionista ...or and this one takes my vote:

Because when Y sashays into the dinner party or soiree with a totally new and unexpected garment; all the ladies gasp, applaud, or turn to another to gossip quietly of said spectacle.

It is all good!! How,?

The attention!!

She is in command of the room, she is feeling the ego rush her hubby feels when he mows down workers attempt to unionize, when he closes the deal that will wipe out the forests of New York etc.

According to a book i read along time ago about the Astor's of NYC in 1800s , he ruled the boardroom, she ruled the social pecking order. Sweet - as this so works into how the myths maintain power, knowing when and what to socialize while privatizing the profits looks a little like "equal, but different."

The memes we spread are contagious.. so spread healthy ones!

performance Art Fashion Victims

"Spanish artist Yolanda Domínguez brought the horror of the Rana Plaza building collapse to one of Madrid's busiest shopping districts this month with a "live" performance that underscored the real fashion victims of unethical clothing production. Inspired by the April 24 disaster in Bangladesh, where at least 1,127 garment workers lost their lives, Dominguez "buried" several well-dressed women under piles of rubble, their projecting limbs a clear evocation of the images of mangled bodies that emerged in the tragedy's aftermath."

Quote and photo from Ecouterre Magazine, go there to see the video of this performance on site.

The Soul of the HandMade

 

A "Bunad" or traditional dress of Norway

I had a sweet conversation with a couple of Nordic Dancers at Folklife yesterday.

I was sketching a velvet vest encrusted with garish embroidery. A woman sitting next to me noticed and started talking costume and i learned a lot about blouses in trunks and traveling fabrics, repurposed drapes and a wonderous belt i can only imagine.

Her friend joined the conversation as she was a costumer for the dance troupe. She made new pieces based on the old handmade costumes.

This is where the soul of the handmade entered the discourse. She told me how people would say, “oh, that is so wonderful, just like the original garment,” and she would say, “ no, no it isn't , they may look similar but they are not the same.”

She spoke of the hand of the garments the look of the backs , the colors. How the hours and  hours of handwork came after the growing, harvesting and weaving of the flax. She understood how the whole of the process that informs the original pieces, cannot really compare with what we can “afford” to do today.

Isn’t it strange? We can afford to live in material overload and yet we cannot “afford” to live where the soul of life, where our hearts and joys manifest

I believe our creative processes uncover the gifts we are meant to share with the world. This is why individualism makes sense in the whole of the multi verse (Amit Goswami) that is “All”

I am thinking how losing the time, space and essence of this work of finding true purpose (albeit not vocalized or even necessarily a conscious thought back in the days of lore) is a deadly thing.

When we throw so much under the “bus of profit and growth” in the name of progress; what are we growing, at what cost and who gets to decide if this is really progress?

And what is carried into the world by the "fast fashion" garment produced in a sweatshop? What aura persists after the label goes on?

Pandora’s Box of bad juju, every time the plastic is pulled off the tee shirt bundle, a little more sadness is released into the world. Trade is more than a material transfer.

Sweatshop Disasters

Fashion -what you see is only the tip of a vast machine!

The recent tragedy in Bangladesh reminds me of another sweatshop disaster.

The one I am referencing was in New York City, 1911 and claimed the lives of 146 women. That Triangle Shirtwaist fire was so horrifying to the people of the city that they demanded changes in regulations and policies.

“Three months after the fire, Governor John A. Dix signed a law creating the Factory Investigating Commission. Following the findings of the commission, the New York State Legislature enacted 36 statutes to regulate workplace fire safety and ventilation, and to set minimum standards for working women and children.”

( Cooper, C, Remembering the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, 100 Years Later)  

This helped the Unions gather the strength they needed to push for fair wages and decent working conditions.

Like the garment workers in Bangladesh, the women were locked into the building with little heed paid to their well being as whole human beings.

Back to NYC back in the day- workers were considered  by some people as "things" to be used and tossed aside when their usefulness was over.  As many of the women were immigrants (insourced workers)  this parallels outsource capitalism in a weird way.

Cheap transportation (subsidized oil) allows stuff to be shipped to consumers at rates that undermine local goods and labor. This is a matter of relativity that the Free Trade dogma ignores in pursuit of market advantage. Considered "good for the economy" aka good for the people who take 'advantage" of  the resources around them while giving back as little as possible; it in fact depletes the economic "soil" similar to the chem subsidy our food crops have endured. And like the story of the food crops, depleted soils become dead soils aka deserts.

So outsource is akin to the tactics employed by the Industrialists as they "designed" immigration policy. But now instead of importing labor, companies can just import the products. This minimizes their responsibility for the conditions that the worker's endure and many other possible risks and problems..

However the backbone of this story that revolves around wealth, power, entitlement and dominion over others includes the right to lord it over the Earth, animals and plants as well. This story is older than nations and yet it continues..

So despite it's age, the story is still honed, redressed and passed forward. It continues to protect hierarchy and reward wealth as it's own raison d'etre. It isn't.

 Stopping abuse in sweatshops is just one facet of this many layered mess. However it is something we can take on.

.Stop buying clothing unless it is totally needed. Ask stores where the Fair Trade goods are kept. Ask who and how the items were made. Try to discuss product lifecycles.

You will be cajoled, laughed at, ignored or you just might strike up a conversation that will make your day.

I know this. I do it and have seen more good energy than else , so I recommend this action.

Want more: See if there is a sewing group in your area or start one. Discuss cool things to make out of other things that are no longer useful. Search the refashion and recycouture blogs and websites for ideas, inspiration.  Practice what you believe.

As for Bangladesh, my heart goes out to all those who are suffering, all those who have been harmed by product madness. I am sending out healing energy thoughts, sending out love.

So now I wonder, if this time, as in after the Triangle Fire, policies and regulations will be changed to support the human beings who trade their time and energy in hope of fair and adequate compensation. I hope that this time we will turn from the pushy profiteering model and design an economic platform that honors life.

I wonder if this time we will start the evolution towards a super conscious reality. I wonder and I am believing we will. So get out there and make some righteous noise!!