Create Demand

Cardi from Dolly Rocker outta Detroit showin at Etsy

Am having a great time inventing a plot for the middle layer of "Made in Detroit"

The title of this entry relates to fast fashion's relentless onslaught to make us feel inadequate and hopelessly out of 'style.' When one realizes that the best designers become known via their personal aesthetique which then gets trumped by the need to design for a bottomline on the corporation's ledgers (like Gucci Group), one might experience enlightenment. Ok a bit over the top, but really the two goals are so different. To sell ever more product shows growth which translates to success therefore selling for mass appeal outweighs personal vision.

So talent is squeezed dry. That leaves a bad taste.

All around there appears to be an amazing acceptance of bad taste, for how can it be tasteful, chic or fashionable to run amuck through resources for no rational reason other than fear of being out of fashion?

Draining resources to feed a system that doesn't seem to get that it will eventually have nothing left to feed upon means eventually we are ALL out! Welcome to the Moderne Daymare.

The healthy alt version is to buy vintage, seccond round, used garb and to reFashion and repurpose what is already here. When new is necessary go to someone designing with sustainable fabrics, honoring Fair Trade win/win/win agendas and the like. be responsible and take charge of your destiny and please support local, eco sane, indy designers, clothiers and re-use merchants..

Fashion Propaganda

Vintage Buttons
Fashion history is full of a certain kind of propaganda. I am not talking advertisement and free (?) market idea proliferation or real designerly desire to fill a need (sportswear, warm coats)or a perceived need for something fresh, fun or shocking. That is juicy enough for another day.

No this is more along the lines of government interference like button laws (The Book of Buttons by Joyce Whittemore) and fabric color rules. With business and government holding hands for so long we have accepted or normed many things by the way they happened as if there is no other way for them to have come about.

As inventions have appeared almost simultaneously in different parts of the world without any special agenda other than the curious motivation of the inventor, I suspect we would be capable of wondrous things without this track. In fact an open systems approach would probably foster more brilliancy, not less.

Simplicity 1971

This Western look with great drapey sleeves is pattern number 1971. I can't find the date it was printed but the directions were lithographed in the USA and the Simplicity headquarters were located on Madison Ave., New York, NY.

Local production meant local workers. I am wondering about the working conditions as I suspect this is a late 40s look. Everything these days is becoming a question of economics as it is the control central of many systems that are in failure mode. A lot of alarms are ringing and covering our ears won't help.

Picture Tales

This 1947 pattern from McCalls says quite a bit. The wide shoulders might be considered symbolic masculinity, as women were called upon to work in the shipyards and the factories; to generally replace the men who had gone to war.

This cover was 2 years after the war while the women were being pushed back into their homes.

The tiny waists and soft hair suggests the look of the 50s when Dior brought back the full billowy super feminine skirt and barbie doll bustlines entered the scene.

Is it premeditated design or just a kickback from one extreme to another or what?

reClaimed suit

The original suit was too big shouldered and the rayon made for wimpy pants. I restyled the jacket and used part of the pant leg to add to the sleeves. Next up a skirt to wear with.

AirDye

samples of new tech process for no water contaminating, dye on demand fabrics. Synthetics can be sustainably viable when the dye techniques are factored into the full processing equation. Right now going forward with technology that improves the status quo is a plus.

Visit AirDye direct and learn more, good for the New Year spirit of change now!

Anna Herman Winter 2010

Anna's home grown collection was shown recently in Montana at the Finlen Hotel.

When we buy products made in the USA by small independent businesses we help creativity thrive. I don't know about you, but going across the US to find a replicated shopping environment screams boring to me!! The industrialization of life is a bad plan!! It doesn't create satisfying lives of quality, it seems to actually be making us very unhappy, unhealthy and stupid.

Money that is spent in local, independent markets tends to stay and circulate within those communities and that strengthens the local economic scene. This should inspire more start ups & create better investing policies; policies that see interactions and connections within systems. This then opens the limiting construct we have today, where the very few control too much for their own ( and the majorities) good!

When we all matter and are appreciated for what we can do, are nurtured to become the best we can be, are enabled to grow our wings, we will probably fly past this billious scene of power under idiocy of profits alone.

Now that is worth living for, dare you in 2011!

Favorite Things

my bright eyed girl

"I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the hearts' affections and the truth of imagination - what the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth whether it existed before or not."- John Keats

"They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourselves." Andy Warhol

Muse the full lyrics to Uprising.

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."- Eleanor Roosevelt

"The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature." Joseph Campbell

Here's to a happier New Year, dare to be your best and let's see what unfolds.

the family tribe

plaid circle skirt, cute!
This photo is of my Mom's family. I can't look at it without thinking what my grandmother might have been in other circumstances. She was a crafting wizard. She knit, crocheted, sewed, made paper mache Christmas scultures, planted succulents in Grandpas old boots, painted ceramics, baked bread, canned vegetables and fruits, cooked for farmhands and family, raided eggs from the chickens and what all..... all the while raising 10 kids.


I figure large families were a blessing to this era of farmers. Their small, fairly organic farms (less added chemicals, more composting) However my grandmothers life was no doubt hampered by all those pregnancies and I am extremely appreciative of better birth control and more opportunities available to me and my granddaughter.

The stamina and talent she showed is right up there with super heroes...kudos Grandma W, i love and miss you. You were a Grande Dame.

Happy Lunar Eclipse

Fiber art work with scrap applique and free stitching on black satin

Eclipsed Totally, and the Winter Solstice too....6:38 pm pt tomorrow the 21st...MagicKal 2011 is nigh.

With the Radio On...

....Refuzor style in the 80s

Punk rock defiance in fashion, music and lifestyle - reactionism to Cold War nuclear threat.

Another ethical fashion nonprofit on Positive World Radio Now has started to inform and be a source for the risk takers who actually try to diversify the economic construct so that it creates sustainable work for other than non profits who rely on donations from for profits ...This looks to be a spiral that is winding down as the for profits have gotten huge, unwieldy and have narrowed the field with false boundaries & regulations, subsidies etc. This can not continue into a good story.

Isn't it possible to be rewarded outright for work that actually exhibits the new paradigm, grows it and experiments within the realm of todays knowledge, respects resources and is the change we talk about? Can't we build the economic sector to function within the raison d'etre that suits the new human mindset?

The source people like Global Action Through Fashion are all good -it is just that the startups need more than advice. They need the funds, the buildings and the social connections that real time, real space encounters within actual communities can embrace. Interactive communications generate new information. With more small businesses there will be more diversity which will enhance communication and therefore generate more information to further expand opportunities. It is a better spiral winding open, and that is a story worth writing!

Many windows of possibility will open in this dynamic construct. This is a 'next process' that will keep us lively while the old construct crumbles.

I saw a miracle in real time while setting up the space for "Species on the Verge" i have watched London eco designers take off because they were supported and worked collectively, I know we can do it here in Seattle and CONNECTED act one, will be the catalyst. If interested contact Anna, Mark or me and thank you.

Craftery in Hooverville

One of a kind Christmas shopping with vintage findings, custom arts n crafts, clothing and kitsch. 1721 1st Ave S. at the Hooverville Bar 11-5pm Sunday Dec. 12th