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.
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 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!!

Lifecycle of Tee Shirt

Tee shirt reFashion skirt 2010 

for fashionRIP Project samples

Product Life Cycles are part of the unified field viewpoint.

When we learn to see total pictures and therefore full costs, we will learn to weigh the world's valuable collective assets in a better light. When we do, I have great faith that we will reassign the language of wealth and prosperity in ways that align with the principles of life, planet systems and evolution.

I believe we are in a living uni-verse. Our planet is a design of biotic and abiotic systems that support life and we need to understand that this is about symbiotic relationships, as eventually what we do, say, see, feel, think, hear and touch is connected to all else.

Early industrialists saw Nature as bountiful, infinite even, and was there to use, to take advantage of and to capitalize upon. This ideology stems from Judeo/Christian pull quotes and ego inflated man/god constructs that are still alive and kicking today. (see the Takers in Ishmael novel by Daniel Quinn)

Guess what?  The concepts are wrong, killer even, and therefore against the best interests of even those who maintain the main frame. (idea framing as handed down via the culture formally and informally) Is this crazy or what?

Seriously, we are capable of much more than we thought or were taught to think. When we open up to new ideas, more possibilities open up as well. 

We are growing up, maturing as a species and taking on the heart, spirit energies we once were told to diss for having no scientific proof behind them.

Now, thanks to our advanced technology, we have the measuring tools that provide our senses with the opportunity to see the "unseen" and hear the never before heard. We are transitioning from the concrete, machine thinking of Newton physics and shaking off the debris and saying "yes" to the next chapter in the unfolding of who we are, the i am and the becoming.

Build for Life

 

Great talk on design for health and the real world, where "away" is here. Cradle to Cradle on TED, presented by William McDonnough

Works much like the de-abstraction of the word "now" as in the context that now is all we really have and is where change must manifest. Therefore i try to inhabit the vision of that which i wish to manifest as often as possible. .

Framed by a quantum window, sending this TED talk forward makes for a meaningful now and that counts.

Create intentionally, now. 

".... reimagine conventions in design .....create safe objects of long-term value, eliminate waste, and recognize the interdependence of humans and nature as well as the right of each to co-exist. " 

As taken from YES magazine -William McDonough and Michael Braungart.

Clothes are for people

sweet video for ANANDA PASCUAL
http://vimeo.com/49713437

Cotton and Forced Labor

Another reason to question "our way of life" and the cost of maintaining a worn out, violent set of beliefs. Another case of the absurdity and wrong mindedness of "market rule" -forcing excess on one hand (update your home, your clothing and be a good consumer) and forced production on the other.

We can and must do better than this.

Levi's Dirty Tags

 

Is the Levi plan to Detox connected to this scandal?

"Levi Strauss may have pioneered the “Water and “Waste lines of denim, but the jean icon is far from a paragon of sustainability, according to a new report from Greenpeace. In its first investigation of textile manufacturers in Mexico, one of the largest producers of denim in the world, the environmental nonprofit discovered a wide range of hazardous chemicals in the wastewater of two of the nation’s biggest factories" (Ecouterre)

Now it's time for the next conversation. How many jeans does anyone need? How much water can we afford to contaminate? How much longer are we going to play this idiots game of russian roulette?  We can just stop.

This culture of violence against nature, other people against our own spiritual and emotional selves needs to be seen for the monster it is.  When Bradley Manning is tortured for letting the truth of nations speak for themselves -"we" are condoning violence. When a young man opens up and fires killing 28, most of them children, "we" want to find something to blame, "we" want to scapegoat the victims of our own creation.

The USA has aligned with monetary power to systemically rape and pillage around the world (Haiti, Jamaica, Mexico, Africa, USA, more) Headlines now proclaim the violence at home. Sandy, suicides, dead "food" and killing sprees - Karma?

This old story is beyond sad, beyond disgusting and ignorant. Lets get real. We can create a world of meaning and well being. We have the tools, the technology, the information we need to stop the pillager and focus on that which is our greater possibility.

Piles of material wealth just scream narcissism and that says ego on steroids aka personality development on hold. In this age of resource insanity it just says "wrong." We are no longer impressed, the cover is blown. (PS Hiding under a Foundation won't heal the heart it only pacifies the wounds)

We can be heroes, for more than one day,
Though nothing can drive them away We can beat them forever and ever, yes we can be heroes, (if only) just for one day.