I Am Because We Are- Charity Fashion Show Events

Hi, everyone! Hope all are doing well! 

I have some exciting news (at least it is for me)! Some months ago I asked to be a model for a charity event. Business student, designer and Modish Iconoclast blogger Klarissa Kurtz designed a line of clothing for last year's REVO Event, and this year, I'm so pleased to say that I'll be modeling one ensemble for her line. This REVO event will be working towards ending slavery and human trafficking on behalf of the Not for Sale Campaign, and will be held at La Sierra University. 

Doubly exciting, we get to walk the runway twice. Loma Linda University is having a charity event called Ubuntu, which will send it's proceeds to orphanages and gardening projects in Swaziland. Having heard the word  ubuntu a few times before, my favorite definition of it is "I am because we are", a sort of community-based approach to being and existing. This event has been planned by AfriNet LLU.

I've been asked to keep mum as the word on theme and details of this line, but all will be unveiled on the 16th and 17th. If you'd like to see the big reveal as it happens and are in the area, reserve your tickets for the Loma Linda event here, or the the La Sierra one here! 

These causes are mind-blowing and exciting to me, and I'm quite antsy to be a part of my first runway modeling gig! I'm so grateful for every last person who will be there, cheering us on. If you can't make it, but would still like to donate to Not for Sale, you can do that HERE!

I'd love to see everyone who can stop by either of these, and as always, I'm so glad you stopped by my blog page, as well! :)

(more pictures and info about Unique LA to come)

Recommended Viewing or "Fashion... Turn to the Left... Turn to the Right"

Alright, so it happened! John Oliver is talking about fashion! Or rather the creepy Yeti of an industry behind it. After watching this video I have to front load and say: I was formerly unaware, but now am ashamed of some of my aloof posts. I thought I was cool for not purchasing Nike…

If you just laugh along to some of the jokes that he tells, you can miss a couple of details that are rather alarming. But if you look carefully you'll see a couple of compounding / snowballing patterns that I'd like to point out. It must be difficult to point out some of the nuanced details while trying to also cover of breadth of knowledge on the topic.

So here are the downward rolling snowballs that I saw: 

1. We're putting ourselves into a low-price trap. (We can't say it only hurts those making the clothing, honestly.) We outsource so that the item will be less expensive, which means we will have fewer jobs in whichever country ours may be, which means our next items will need to be more inexpensive. I don't care to see how far downhill that snowball will roll. Although I imagine it would and somewhere along the lines of: "This 1 dollar bill would be more expensive than that dress, if only we could afford the scotch tape!" (Don’t believe me? Check this mess out!!)

2. Subcontracting is don't-be-mad code for "We outsourced these outsourced items", and with that comes human rights abuses that no one is directly accountable for. Hey Walmart, you sent your work to someone else, and then lost track of where they were? Really? Because at least one Old Navy subcontractor has figured out how to keep track his workers (unethical though tying children together indeed is). What could possibly be next for the people who get mixed up with the subcontractors’ subcontractors? I can't bring myself to make something light about how things could get any worse. But maybe next time a manager looses track of a subcontractor, they should be tied together until some answers are produced... But I'll leave it at that; this snowball is too cold to handle.

3. Lastly, the dazzle and dodge techniques used by these companies are rivaled only by Richard Genre's character in Chicago. Each glittering snowflake of lovely garments, the joy of shopping and cool advertisements are all compacting together to blind us. Each time it comes up in the media, I think it's going to be handled, and then it's not. As soon as we turn 3/4 away from the problem, companies seem to try even harder to make buying clothing into a moral mine field. It's like we can't take our eyes off of them!

"So what are we supposed to do about this, Marla?" is the question my sister asks me each time I make her watch an episode of Last Week Tonight, and hope you're thinking the same thing. I say "We can't take our eyes off them!" Keep an eye on fashion companies/suppliers. They have shown us that they're willing to not so much bend morals distastefully, as do obscene back-flip after obscene back-flip in order to get our money. So can we make an effort to use our money to... encourage… (read force) these acrobats to stand upright, and be ready to keep in step with the march of progress.

If we take that laser-focused critical eye and point it at the business practices of a fashion company, rather than merely at the details of the garment, the above patterns won’t have a snowball’s chance.

Below are some resources my sister has collected along the way in order to 

help her become a more thoughtful shopper. Thanks so much for collaborating with me, Sis!

Thank you to Elizabeth S., The Notepasser, for her list of 7 Ethical Fashion Resources: http://thenotepasser.com/blog/2013/9/13/ethical-fashion-resources

Cheer on these NYC-based underdogs as they push back against those that would push them out of business. They’ll point out who to shop with, Where you can get the hook-up if you’re a designer, and even who to bother if you want to contact elected officials!: http://savethegarmentcenter.org/about/

Sara Laughed has a list of ethical brands both in the US and abroad, which creates plus sized clothing for women: http://saralaughed.com/index.php/ethical-fashion-plus-sized-ethical-clothing/

Busy Mommy must have been very busy listing 150 companies that are sustainable, fair trade, or have charitable donations built into the budget. Not just clothes: Coffee, soap, futbols, hats!: http://busy-mommy.com/2014/12/150-social-good-companies-with-fair-trade-buy-one-give-one-products-or-who-donate-a-portion-of-proceeds.html

I’m not sure how Good Guides works, but you can type in clothing brands and other items and get a rating based on how healthy the item is, the environmental impact and it’s effect on society. You can also get the app for your mobile devices. http://www.goodguide.com/

There's also this handy flowsheet!

The Next Step

I told myself a little more than a year ago that I wanted to keep my fashion blog up, consistently, for a year. I told myself to keep to a weekly posting. I must say, I was really inspired by a good friend who had been doing it since we were college classmates. I never imagined anyone would look at mine, but I did it all the same, because to me, the whole concept-- and the friend-- were beyond cool.

Now that the year is done and gone, and I actually have surpassed it by several weeks, I wonder: Should I stop posting? Should I move on to another blog that's a little less fashion and a little more philosophy?

But lately, it's felt more like a little plant than a form of self-discipline. I feel the desire to prune it (edit former posts) and water it (keep doing more/maybe post more often). I'm not going to hold myself to a rigid schedule. I tried that before, and would stay up late even on stressful/tiring days just to make sure the post would be at some point on Thursday. Towards the end of the year, that didn't happen quite so faithfully.

Along the way, I got to enjoy seeing how the international community works, seeing that people had read by blog from France, Estonia, Brazil... That was exciting to see.

I also got a little more brave and put my blog where my peers could see, even though I assumed for years that I was the ugly duckling and none of them would be interested (well... just a select few, anyway). I've wondered if I should photoshop, or if I should buy and expensive camera. I wondered if without those things I could call myself a blogger (even a part-time) one, and compared myself to others with coding experience and million dollar wardrobes. Suffice it to say, I was quite insecure about the whole process.

Now I'm thinking that this is a joy for me, not an opening to let negativity in. And to take good advise and ideas from others, but still ultimately rely on my own mind for how this blog 'should' function or 'should' look. Perhaps that will make this blog slightly more sustainable. After all, fear of any intensity takes up a lot of energy.


To my readers who stop by and read; you're helping to make changes in me.

Thanks,


SomethingNew