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#occupyfashion (post #15)

i ♥ that this happened: http://www.cynicaltimes.org/articles/occupy-brings-working-class-outrage-to-fashion-week/

“The whole Occupation thing is important because it’s about people going out and talking about the things that are messed up in our own society and the fashion industry is one of them,” said Mediavilla. “New York City used to be popping with jobs for people making clothes and then the industry outsourced many of those (apparel) jobs so they could pay people pennies on the hour in other countries instead of a decent wage.

“Meanwhile, they’re spending $500,000 on a single magazine cover photo that gets photo-shopped all to hell and is often very unrealistic. Young people see these fake images and think they have to look like that.”

Employment in the U.S. apparel industry has fallen by 82% since the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect Jan. 1, 1994, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The U.S. had 149,700 apparel workers last month, compared with 834,900 in January 1994.

The median pay for the 64,100 sewing machine operators left in the U.S. was $19,180 in 2010.

…”Most of my friends that work in the fashion industry are only part timers and they’re given less than 30 hours of work each week so they don’t qualify for benefits, but they still make too much to qualify for food stamps,” Stone-Diaz said, pausing briefly as a passing fashionista called the protesters “assholes.”

He smiled, shook his head and continued.

“We have all these fashion shows on television right now – like Project Runway – that romanticize the industry and hold it up as part of the American Dream,” Stone-Diaz said, “but it’s built on 1% structures just like the American Dream.”

One of those structures is grossly underpaying workers in order to lavishly overpay investors and top executives, models and designers.

i think some people think my work in fashion shows is counter to all of the other socio-political stuff i do/write about and wonder how i could be dong this “really superficial’ thing one day and then writing about poverty and justice the next. first of all, it irks me that some people think that fashion is only trivial and superficial and belittle its importance in human culture, especially as compared to the other arts, but that is another topic in itself and so i digress. my point here is that in fact, i ONLY, and i mean ONLY, work with designers who are dedicated to responsible clothing, who source their goods as responsibly as they can, and to keeping their lines ethical from beginning to end.

i do these fashion shows because i love fashion as a form of self-expression, but also because i think supporting my friends who do local fashion IS IMPORTANT – as noted above, the U.S. fashion industry is not only cruel in its treatment of women as objects, but the treatment of workers here and abroad is horrid.

recent photos: 2/11 and 2/14

wearing a Tamo Designs dress and at the Opel Productions 10 Year Anniversary party fashion show – 2/11/14 @ Mezzanine. the print on that dress is *so awesome.* her stuff really is gorgeous, hand crafted, soft, sleek and beautiful.

backstage with Shelby Autumn at LoveSick5

backstage with Alexandria Von Bromssen, the star and creator of LoveSick

here is a whole beautiful set of LoveSick photos by C&M photography.  i won’t repost them here, but  i think this one is the keeper.

love fashion music 2/11 + 2/14

i am excited to be in two locally made and produced fashion shows in the next week:

this saturday 2/11, Opel’s 10-year anniversary party @mezzanineSF (aww….so many SF music collectives are entering their tweens!) with a hot fashion show featuring two of my SF faves, Tamo and Silver Lucy .

then 2/14, it’s LoveSick 5 (for which i did the promo, if you haven’t seen).  i don’t know what we’re going to do but it will be twisted.

Alexandria von Bromssen, Jasmin Zorlu, Amy Fink,  Tamo Design, Miranda Caroligne, Kathleen van der Spek, My Dirty Dishes,  Josie Adele,  Benzo Couture, Velvet and Horns, Bradley D. Jordan & Danielle Petty will have their lingerie & fashion show, with live music from the Goldenhearts and a special appearance by performance artist Bad Unkl Sista.

video promo for lovesick5

clinically attracted
in which i go crazy in love. (possibly NSFW)

LOV3SICK5 – 2.14.12

hair theory

on new year’s eve i went and got the sides of my head shaved again in brooklyn, this time with the closest shave i’ve had (#1). i was tired of it growing out so quickly, and wanted it to look fresh for the new year.

every once in a while i catch someone’s eye – usually an older person, but sometimes not –  and i can see the question in their eyes.

now why would such a pretty girl go and do something like that to her hair?

i admit that some days i look in the mirror and ask myself the same question, but that is exactly the question i want to be asked.

offbeat home: cleaning out your closets and advancing your style

oh hey! look! i have a guestpost on Offbeat Home today!

Cleaning out the closet: looking at the concept of age appropriate clothing

he who seeks beauty will find it

“Fashion is the armor to survive the reality of everyday life.”

-Bill Cunningham

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Cunningham_New_York is one of the best films i’ve seen in a while. i think it’s relevant and moving whether you are into fashion or not, because it’s about humanity’s relationship to fashion more than it is about fashion.

the scene where the reporter asks him why he goes to church every sunday is somehow heartbreaking. there is more to that answer.

watch Bill Cunningham New York on Hulu for free

“if you don’t take their money, they can’t tell you what to do…
money is the cheapest thing.  freedom is the most expensive.”

what do women want?

I want a red dress.
I want it flimsy and cheap,
I want it too tight, I want to wear it
until someone tears it off me.
I want it sleeveless and backless,
this dress, so no one has to guess
what’s underneath. I want to walk down
the street past Thrifty’s and the hardware store
with all those keys glittering in the window,
past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old
donuts in their café, past the Guerra brothers
slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly,
hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders.
I want to walk like I’m the only
woman on earth and I can have my pick.
I want that red dress bad.
I want it to confirm
your worst fears about me,
to show you how little I care about you
or anything except what
I want. When I find it, I’ll pull that garment
from its hanger like I’m choosing a body
to carry me into this world, through
the birth-cries and the love-cries too,
and I’ll wear it like bones, like skin,
it’ll be the goddamned
dress they bury me in.

–Kim Addonizio

(thx Holly)

cognitive dissonance wrt dressing young and use of the word “girl”

britney’s new video (synopsis), which she starts by pseudo-rebelliously saying “Fuck you” to members of the fake press, lead me to comment that i think it’s sad that after all these years her interpretation of being “edgy” is using the F word and dressing like 19 year old hot topic salesperson while still singing in her baby voice. this video is supposed to be Britney responding to her haters, but to me it seems she got played right into the thing she’s supposedly fighting against.  the video does not scream “strong, confident, independent woman” to me.

this brought me back to try to finish my thoughts on this piece, which caused a lot of dissonance for me:  http://jezebel.com/5810735/dont-fear-the-dowager-a-valentine-to-maturity

“Women with master’s degrees who are searching for life partners, list “rainbows, Girl Scout cookies, and laughing a lot” under “interests” on their Match.com profiles…

When I shop now, I have to make sure that garments I think are dresses, are not actually rompers. If you don’t know what rompers are, they’re shirts attached to shorts, and they used to be called onesies.

The closest thing Madonna ever did to infantilizing herself was for her 1992 Steven Meisel Vanity Fair cover. Today, KATY PERRY IS POSING IN HEADGEAR. And despite the facade of cliqueishness, and female friendship, and the Romy & Michelle’ness of gal-pal fun times, let’s be real. We all know these manic pixie Muppet Babies are really just in it for the peen. And instead of acting like a woman who might remind a skittish bro more of his teacher or his mother, we’re going for the pubeless, twee, Anime-eyed version of whatever dream girl we assume they want or need.

It’s like how we used to hide our interests around boys (‘I hate math! It’s so hard!’). Now, instead, we’re singing the praises of Skittles Sours instead of emulating, say, Kathleen Turner? Barbara Stanwyck? …

It’s all to the same ends— women are trying to broadcast to men that we won’t bite their dicks off. It’s just that now, instead of lipstick, we’re wearing glittery lip gloss, or that shit you get in the drug store that tastes like Dr. Pepper.

…Because the larger issue is that it is a lot easier for men -or even guys or bros-to demean us, if we’re girls. It’s much harder to bring down a woman, or to call her a moron, when she’s not in pigtails and Ring Pops. Not that his idea of you should influence your style, or your sense of self-worth. But I feel like in a way, it already sort of has?”

this causes a lot of dissonance for me because as a woman who is almost 35, i still often dress what some people would consider “young”. but while i would never be one to say what women over X age should/should not wear, i too agree that it’s hard take a woman over 30 seriously if she’s demanding respect while she is dressed like a girl half her age, and i too have noticed that current mall trends are catering hard to what some would consider “infantilism”.  just the other day i was walking behind a female on the street who, from behind, i thought was probably 15-20 due to her slight build and because she was wearing a floral print onsie-romper thing.  then i passed her, and noticed she had a pack of cigarettes in her hand and so then when i looked at her face, this woman was at least 40. it was confusing. perhaps this is my social construct, but to me it signaled something about this woman that suggested she wasn’t quite sane.

on the other hand, i also am firmly against the “blame the victim” accusations against women who get raped and then someone says she was “asking for it” because of how she was dressed/she was intoxicated, and believe that a woman should not suffer negative actions based on how she’s dressed. however, i do believe that what you wear matters and how you dress sends messages (intentional or otherwise), so i’m with the Jezebel author in that i have found my self cringing lately when i see other women my age dressing like someone half it. a touch of cutesy – sure. i like playful. i like pigtails, i like striped knee socks and glitter. but there’s a blurry line there and somewhere (usually depending on context) it becomes hard to know if you are just holding onto your youth or if you’re really immature.

also, on this note, of late i’ve been irked by the ubiquity of the use of the word “girls” to describe women of ANY AGE.  i was watching a travel show on TV and this hiking guide was with two middle-aged WOMEN, but he kept referring to them as “the girls” and it was driving me NUTS.  i get that the linguistic pairing of “guys” and “girls” is basically equal to “men” and “women”, and therefore calling a 35-y.o. male a “guy” and a 35-y.o female a “girl” is the same, so then why is it that the reference to a grown woman as a “girl” seems so much more demeaning to me?