DesignBoost: Fashion Debates and Hactivism at Parsons

 Excuse my delay in responding! Graduate school has been quite a doozy. Additionally, I am costuming two wonderful, socially inspired productions that go up in the next few weeks! Both plays address themes ranging from the complexity of childhood, how children process trauma, and the power the subconscious. I will be talking about this more in a subsequent post...

Now back to the thought provoking design Sweden-based conference: Design Boost.

The Second Annual DesignBoost Conference on the topic of "Design Intellience" took place at the Parsons School of Design/New School last Tuesday and Wednesday and consisted of a set of two dynamic days of roundtable discussions and presentations from designers, professors, politicians, philanthropists, activists and lay people representing design conscious individuals from the U.S. and Sweden. This cross continental, cross cultural, and cross institutional event generated plenty of ideas around how we can re-think "Design Intelligence"  and "Sustainability in Fashion."

Some of the thought exchanges were:

• Fashion Hacktivism: the ability to hack into the systematic fashion matrix and create your own fashion voice using the tools and codes of familiar fashion images.
• Nation-States: What does it mean to use the role of nations and nation states in design?
• Nurturing Our Relationship with Clothes: As fashion images have forced us to loose touch with clothes, now treating them as mere commodities, how do we reform our relationship with them?
• Fashion as Mass Spectacle: is it about the garment or the show (both runway and street)?
• The Mind of a Fashion Exec: How do you get someone to care about sustainability when they merely look at fashion as a corporate account where even the slightest risk to the status quo would cost them millions and potentially their job?
• Thoughts from the Perspective of a Fast Fashion rep: The world needs more design, not less. And these esoteric, artistic approaches to fashion are useless. Really?

So much more can be said, but instead of lumping everything into one post, stay tuned as I break it down, post by post, piece by piece, speaker by speaker and concept by concept. Media is to engage, not to overwhelm. This is a conversation.

But in the meantime, feel free to post your thoughts to the questions and provocations above,

Peace, Love, and Design Intelligence,

T*

Pee-ka-boo! Yes I am making stuff

So over this weekend, well, from Sunday 11am to Monday 5am, I was in the ever-so fashionable mecca of creative locals, Philly, for the Roots Picnic at Pier's Landing. Two words: Ummm...YES! For one thing, the indie mags showed me so much LOVE! Hell, yea I'll pose for you as you gas my street style ego. J/k...but not.

Secondly, the fashion there is so...breathworthy. From spending the night at the Brooklyn Museum...no..sleep...pause/rinse and repeat in Philly, my sartorial mind is buzzing with inspiration. Love you, my fellow artists! I LOVE YOU!

So in the midst of me not sleeping, doing the young people do, doing the adult people work do, and then going to class, I had to post before passing out to let you know that in the midst of all that, I AM making stuff.

For one, about an hour ago, I made my first Patched pocket sample...LINED!

Secondly, I'm doing a series of hour glass Marilyn Monroe meets Bohemian Rhapsody dresses with steel boning, donated taffeta fabric, and surplus stretch denim. Not finished yet, but still working on it...boning, lining, underlining et al.


So Yes, this is just a post to say, "Hello Creative People I met yesterday, I love you!" And "Yes Creative Readers I meet every day, I am still making stuff!"

Peace, Love, and Passion,
T*

Class Highlight: Ethical Fashion with Carmen Artigas

Let me present to you, on this lovely Memorial Day weekend of fun in the Earth*Mama sun, Carmen Artigas, product designer, educator, scholar, ethical fashion genius, the woman who is responsible for me pursuing my M.A. this upcoming fall in "Ethical Fashion and Community Development" at Gallatin NYU, oh I could go on and on and on about how much I learned from her (I took her class this past semester at F.I.T.). Take a look below and some of her wonderful designs:


(Source: http://blog.thenest.com)



Anyhoo, this upcoming Wednesday, i.e. in TWO DAYS, she will be offering her revolutionary course, Ethical Fashion I, at F.I.T. in the evenings. If you had an interest in learning not only about eco-fashion but also ethically produced fashion, honest fashion, fashion with integrity, fashion with an innovation that includes keeping the people and planet happy while still being financially viable, please oh please oh please consider taking this class. For $109 (the price of like...a metrocard?!?), you will walk away with an honest and AUTHENTIC understanding of what the industry truly needs.

So, enjoy the rest of the sunlight and remember, knowledge is power.

Peace, love and soul,
T*

p.s. here are a list of SOME of the special guests that you will get to meet IN PERSON, if you take this class (side note: I know Pamela of the NYC Fair Trade Coalition, and like so many of the other presenters, she is AMAZING! Doing some really remarkable work in the fashion scene):

- “Love is Mighty “ designer Monisha Raja: Ethics Preserving Endangered Crafts

- “Happily Ever After” Brittany Haas: The Economy of Sharing

- “The Humane Society” Michelle McDonald: A Cruelty-Free Fashion System

- “Sustainable Solutions” Meg Tanaka: Japan’s Emerging Markets

- “Save the Garment Center” Co-Founders Anthony Lilore and Erica Wolf: Made in America is Back!

- “Andean Collection” Amanda Judge: Crossing frontiers

- “NYC Fair Trade Coalition” Pamela Alimurung: What’s fair?

- “Indego Africa” Deirdre McGuigan: Challenges and Prospects for Artisan Empowerment