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I just saw that quote from Ghandi again today: “Be the change you wish to see in the world” and find that it’s so true. Being a responsible consumer used to mean that one was doomed to wearing dirty colors and unsexy burlap and boiled wool. Whereas if you’re a fashion wild child today, you can still wear Wonderwoman lycra (if it’s used, or if it’s been in your closet for 20 years as much of mine has!). The slow fashion stuff is pretty obvious these days, right? Lets put it another way: if you wear fast fashion, you’ve basically got blood on your hands. On my slow-fashion soap box, I’m refusing to participate in a system that rewards slave-wage labor. I don’t want to wear blinders anymore!
Big yes here. I remember as a child picking out fabric at the fabric shop with Grandma Simpson who made me copies of dresses we’d find together in the fancy department stores. My uncle owned the most fashionable shop in downtown Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The love of fashion is in my blood.
Yes, the land that elected Obama. I refuse to acknowledge the fiction that we live in now. But really, I was born in North Carolina, spent my teenage years in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and Brazil, and then school in Massachusetts, and finally NYC. Since 1998 I'm in Berlin. It’s been 20 years!
I'm writing and editing a lot (mostly texts about art, often for Art Basel). Art criticism is pretty much a dead genre and so I decided to turn my energies to a place where I can help evoke real change. It’s quite possible that instead of fashion being the 2nd largest cause of pollution in the world that it becomes the pioneer of world-changing practices.
It changes naked human beings into shape-shifting chameleons (though admittedly my spirit animal is the sloth).
I think it was when I started seeing fashion as being political. It was probably the United Colors of Benetton ads by Olivier Toscani or images of Grace Jones, the ultimate female cool.
It’s an uphill battle, yes. Perversely, I used to think of myself as the last savior of clothes before they hit the landfills in Africa, buying up every last bit of unwanted sale Zara. I called Zara my “crack” and used to joke with friends about going to get a crack fix. I was an H&M and Zara addict. After Rana Plaza, and definitely after seeing the film THE TRUE COST, my worldview on fashion completely changed.
I was thinking of ways to make vintage not just cool but also chic. The exact moment I can even pinpoint: it was when I saw this amazing Balenciaga (or was it Vetements?) button-up shirt with the back replicating the front with its double collar and it cost a whopping heart-attack 1250 euro. Do-it-yourself energies began coursing through my veins, so I began cutting up two shirts, and got all Edward Scissorhandy, and made mistakes, et voila, I eventually had a shirt that let’s you turn the arms into wings.
I source them myself from local secondhand shops here in Berlin. Often, they’re unworn deadstock with the tags from the original maker still on them. All of them are 100% cotton and many of them are made in Germany!!
YES. It’s what drives me! I’m constantly reminding someone or reprimanding myself when I buy an avocado, for instance, outside of the months of December and January. That’s when they are ripe in Spain (where we get our avocados here in Europe, at least). Did you know that? Otherwise, you’re taking part in the deforestation of the rain forest. We’ve got to stop this stupid avocado craze. And plastics, packaging, and polyester: they’re my pet peeves.
Instagram seems to be the only way, followed up by longer texts on my website HelloAfterMarch.com when I’m feeling very wordy. I wish I would write a bestselling novel about it, and I’m up for writing a Netflix series, for sure!
Hah! This could be the subject for an article for me to research for you! I’m always looking for ways to eat healthy (organic! no Monsanto!) outside of the home. Tiergarten is my favorite ‘sustainable’ do nothing, walk slow and look for mushrooms kinda place.
Three? Surely you joke. I’m still a fashion addict, after all. Knowing that these products are made fairly and with love, the WANT list is endless. The ‘wish list’ by the way, is a total misnomer!
Ja, ich habe die Datenschutzerklärung zur Kenntnis genommen und bin damit einverstanden, dass die von mir angegebenen Daten elektronisch erhoben und gespeichert werden. Meine Daten werden dabei nur streng zweckgebunden für die Nutzung der Kommentarfunktion verwendet.
