Sustainability in Clothing

[helwen]

Are We Ready for Slow Fashion?

Not cut and dried, but also not too long. Talks about the different ways people are trying to create and/or acquire clothing with lower environmental impact.

Comments

[tashabear.livejournal.com]

"cruelty-free leather belts made from South American farm animals who died of natural causes"

Pfft. Tandy's leather comes from animals slaughtered for food. I'd rather that than pay for shipping from South America.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Hence the discussions,not doubt.

I'm not going to buy a $500 shirt with special personal memories embroidered on it either.

The main concept of Slow Clothing is to get durable, quality clothing and maintaining it.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

That was supposed to read, "Hence the discussions, no doubt." Not "not doubt".
Bother.

[lyanna-beth.livejournal.com]

A good, thought-provoking article.

"producing handmade, customized shirts and women's dresses. The shirts are definitely pricey,($) and featuring hand-embroidered images"
As a historical/reproduction seamstress, I KNOW what goes into a handmade - even if by machine - and customized outfit. And I know how long hand embroidery takes. I KNOW that I don't charge what I probably should for the amount of time I take, which doesn't even include researching and drafting a pattern to personally fit the customer, because then no-one, especially in this area, would be able to afford it.
I do know, however, that this isn't my primary income and that I can afford to only take in what I want to do, which is not a luxury that a lot of the people 'in the industry', whether Fast or Slow, can afford.

Thanks for posting that.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Welcome.

Yeah, I've no doubt the cost is appropriate for the shirts. In fact most clothing available in stores in under-priced. The prices have been kept artificially low either through cheap labor, cheap materials, cheap cost of fuel, often a combination thereof.

I'm a big believer in mending when possible, too. And doing my own hemming ;) My mom's really short, so I grew up with seeing her hemming her slacks and skirts, and sometimes helping her out with it. Then I took sewing classes in summer school and that was the beginning of making some clothing myself. Of course I still buy most of our clothing, but once in a while I'm trying to make stuff myself now... it's nice to be able to have some spiff clothing without paying more than I can afford.

Although, there are times when I'd rather pay someone.... There's a skirt I've cut out that I'm considering having a friend/seamstress do the button holes on for me, and I'd be happy to pay for it.... although she's offering to help me do it on her (much better) sewing machine. Sigh. We'll see....

Pricing is a hard thing to do -- if you price according to what you're doing, then you'd be working with wealthier people than you are currently, and it might not be as satisfying in some ways. Fortunately for the folks you do work with, you have the means to do things at an affordable price for them.

[the1butterfly.livejournal.com]

When I worked at Target I was in the clothing section, and I can vouch that every box had the name of a different country (primarily Asian but sometimes different places- I remember lingerie coming from Israel). I'd love to make myself more clothing- especially if I could get a pattern that had a really good fit and that I got good at. Do we have a garb making meeting? I'd love to spend time working with people who know what they're doing.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

There are the open studio evenings at Sarah Langtoft (Strong)'s place once a month. Mike can get you the contact info off one of the email postings.