greening fashion up

so... it's rosemount australia fashion week for those who don't know their zimmerman from their alex perry. although fashion is paying lip service to the concept of sustainability & awareness is on the rise of the direct ecological impact the industry has on the environment it's barely more than a brief puff-powdered great auntie cheek peck.

enter kristin & her inimitable team at the clothing exchange who last night ran an awesomely attended clothes swap at opera australia with drinking nemesis - greenups who've been lurking about on the socio-political bar scene for over a year now. green drinking for green thinking.

utter babe jess miller, who hosted the evening is obviously passionate about the cause & possibilities of not just the reinvention of vintage which is the now ubiquitous gentrification of old school op-shopping [bah] but the possibilities of reshaping & utilising existing pieces into entirely new ones. dust off your nana's sewing machine, safety pins, or velcro now... and start wetting your lips.

did you know that the average global footprint for a pair of jeans is 11 000 litres of water? recycling clothes actually has a huge beneficial impact. in the end we come back to reduce, reuse, recycle and clothes swaps help reroute pre-loved items back into the loop.

in typical style i arrived late & neglected to bring my swapping items. to partake one needs to bring items to surrender into the fold which earns tokens or buttons with which to shop for new items. planning some mayhem snapping, hoping for some bitch-slapping boxing day like sales action i kicked back quietly on the side, champagne glass & killer heels teetering in parallel. then something sparkly caught this magpie's eye...

i was ambushed by unshakeable shrug love. this is becoming a recurring punk monk theme. a heavenly place where doilies & shawls meet. but i had no tokens/buttons. dilemma. 

immediately i set out begging the dispirited gentlemen standing on the sideline who woefully derided the inadequacy of the mens' area. their loss was almost my gain. except they'd already given away their buttons. and so the hunt began.

in fifteen minutes i was rewarded by not one but a handful of buttons generously donated by random people who empathised with my plight & really do embrace the concept of sharing is caring. like a slow lingering kiss. no lip service here rosemount! and i made several friends along the way... thanks marty.

better still unlike that other wine sponsored fashion event - the sweet nectar coming out of my flute was actually extremely quaffable. the fab food & flavour fiends love grub  weren't just bringing it with the solids, their sustainable liquids go off too! 

spruiked "the habitat" wine is harvested from sustainable vineyards & comes packaged in "lean green" bottles which reduce weight and carbon impact with recycled paper labels. i know this because i did stay till the 13th hour & help finish the empties. ever the good samaritan. no wonder the photos came out this colour!

here is my happy ending. a pile of pre-loved clothes generously donated from new friends' extra buttons following the sage advice from tina ann taralus one time stylist with louis vuitton who gave us all our battle instructions pre swap:

UNIVERSAL SWAP GUIDELINES:

THREE DON'TS

1. don't swap one fashion disaster for another.

2. don't take an item because it's vintage or a specific label. say no to sass & bide jeans if they're going to cut your ass or legs in half.

3. say no to wrong size or shape.

THREE DOS

1. remember what suits you.

2. pay homage to colours which you like and like you back. unrequited love is so miserable. even with clothes.

3. take a risk. break rules and tradition. 

not sure whether i broke the rules or not? i think i suit a sparkly shrug... and i'll make it as risky as possible depending whether i wear anything else with it. perhaps just one more well placed lipstick smeared glass of wine. greenups is all about kiss & tell fashion sustainability after all.

next clothing exchange swap meet:

surry hills library

may 12, 2011

cost: 25.00 AUD

fast track to a slow life

so i bought this book yesterday. actually i didn't. i chose the book & my sometime sycophant gifted it to me. we were hanging out because i'd canceled the rest of my day as my mind sharks circled, i realised i was spinning stuck in an uncontrollable vortex amongst them not swimming, not treading water, just spinning & plummeting deep into the cancerous ocean which stress drags one down into. i had to pull the pin because it was already stuck half out.

me = a frozen rabbit on a spinning grenade top. yes, there are deadlines but ultimately i blame poverty which is a ridiculous thing for an arguably smart person to be frazzled about [especially cliche at this time of year], which begs the question if one is so smart why so poor?

i fell into a deep healing sleep early last night whilst reading the book in bed. i deigned not to work on any level & spurned any associated guilt. the wedding, the festival, the feature, the bank, the house: they would all wait. it worked, i woke up able to work once more. christmas may come early this year but deadlines will always crunch at the last moment like frozen grass blades underfoot. the sensation is delicious, almost erotic. january will soothe their memory into sweet oblivion.

slow life/slow food movement very much encapsulates most of my core philosophies so this book screamed out to me in a soothing way amongst my mind's chaotic clatter in the new look berkelouw books [my would-be twenty second home] in newtown last night.

but it raises a really big issue which is core to the fantasies of rat race excapism to which many of us aspire. this book is produced via the luxury resort chain "six senses" a place undoubtedly many of us could spend our lives at. they are doing some very cool things & actually practicing what they preach, operating in an often bio-dynamic sustainable way. they typify the future of planetary aware slow luxury eco resorts placed in some of the most desired spots in the world. for jetsetters. and jets go fast...

i don't want to go to six senses for a week or three & then go back to the city. can't our whole lives be a resort... why should people slave all year to look forward to their token holiday break to then come back & serve the machinations of industry once more? what kind of life is that? perhaps these islands exist purely as carrots to subjugate us into the continued enslavement for the benefit of the few. pyramids have not lost their relevance.

in order to go slow do you have to speed first? this seems so terribly back to front. we whore and slave our lives away at amphetamine like pace utilising as many tools & devices as we can muster to go faster, faster, faster to achieve the holy grail of financial sustainability to then go slow and live a simple life. i love what i do but barely survive doing it, and essentially scrub the toilet bowl of urbanity in order to supplement some kind of acceptable lifestyle. wouldn't it be better just to live rather than survive all along? and fuck cancer off along with it.

why should the idyllic life harmonious with nature be only the stuff of dreams or heinously rich people? creation of desire which is the ultimate marketer's mantra when directed back to the source makes it seem almost impossible. 

technology more often than not serves us poorly in this endeavor enslaving us further. there is no release, nowhere to hide. the earth has shrunk as has our lifestyles & our ability to genuinely sustain ourselves. which makes me wonder as i consider my monthly outgoings & the ridiculousness of all this money paid out to barely survive in this metropolis, can one truly live a slow and fulfilling life, have freedom, independence & be sustainable without the nest egg/inheritance/celebrity sex tape first? or will i just be a dirty outcast scavenging through people's rubbish to build makeshift solar panels with no freedoms when i grow up & be forced to attempt to opt back in and fail later. even bag ladies are often rich with rumored stashes & houses hiding far from the trollied fray. can we truly live without the system?  how much sense do we really have.

fear and greed. that is what binds us all to this fabricated existence. if only we could dispense with them both. both our own lives, other species and our planet as a whole would be indisputably healthier & happier. you don't need six senses to tell you that, but it can help.

please don't buy presents this christmas. give time. these days, it is the most precious gift of all.

baiku = haiku on wheels

punk monk propaganda recently met with the watershed as featured artists for the very soon to be officially launched sustainable bike library sponsored by sydney city council and marrickville council. collaborative consumption: it's an incredible initiative which continues the inner west on its upwardly mobile grass roots trajectory.

bike share is a system which has been hugely popularised in europe notably france via the centralised vélib for years, and recently in canada [bixi] which also has a strong community base for such intermodal endeavors. our cargo bikes are enormous and on first impression seemed quite ungainly but testing has shown them to be an enormous hit & much more weildly than they initially appear.

clare, alex & i faced the fun task of determining our design theme & being hands on with paint & brushes being limited to a monchromatic palette [so the bikes all match]. we even played with a few stencils here and there[no mean feat on a cylindrical surface]. we set up a frame in the kitchen of the corner shop which serves as punk monk HQ and got to work on our travelling haiku concept after shortlisting our handwritten collection we'd written together.

baiku is the end result of our wistful creative toil & will be unveiled following the public launch tomorrow with the other artist contributed bikes [friday september 3rd] where we'll have morning tea with the respective mayors, clover moore and sam iskandar and celebrate local government supported initiatives to keep our city and space a lttle more progressively green.

the bike library runs out of the watershed in newtown 231 king street and these incredible bikes with/without trailers can be borrowed for errands, adventure, shopping or taking the kids [big and small] for a group excursion. they're a bit like a travelling circus. the bike library charges a one off joining fee of ten dollars for residents and businesses alike and bikes can then be borrowed for periods of up to three hours for free.

the watershed
218 king street
newtown, sydney
02 9519 6366