the clothes on your back

You know that lovely addition to your capsule wardrobe that flatters you in all the right places in a  colour that pulls everything together... but in the back of your mind there's a niggling shadow of awareness, momentarily pushed aside. There's a strong suspicion that cheap fashion does come with a human and environmental cost. I feel powerless not knowing when the story behind low prices tell the story of exploited workers and unsafe practices and when it could be explained by the global differences in the cost of labour and materials. I am not immune to bargain buys that boggle the mind: how did they produce the material, sew into clothes and ship across oceans for $20-30 dollars, including the retail markup?

Even if my purchase would be a second hand one, the act of using a product until it's useless doesn't erase the history of how it was made.

I have no idea where the products in this film are heading to, but I'd like to send these kids to school, so they learn to read and write, explore and wonder, express their feelings and ideas and still have time to play and be kids in order to grow into empowered adults. And it's not just a question of underage workers as I'd like to believe there's less and less chance to get away with it these days. How are adults who are tied into lack of education, low wages and long hours able to offer any hope for their children?

It's a sad world where it's accepted to take advantage of the social and economical differences.
Is the price of locally produced goods really out of the average earner's reach or do we just want too much stuff?

Oh to be a conscious consumer.

 
Here's my remedy: when I create clothes I feel more comfortable as I can make informed choices about every detail, starting from the raw material. Knowledge is power.

on raw materials

Bookmarking and sharing:
http://nordicfashionassociation.com/content/raw-materials

Written with an angle on sustainability.

hemp dress

It's been a quiet year with the blog as family has taken centre stage. We also bought a house half way through the year and started renovations, which would be a wonderful creative topic to blog on. However I felt a strong urge to keep my home private, so I'll just say that choosing paint colours is a real treat!

Revisiting 100% hemp cloth I've worked with before, I savoured tailoring this simple dress that I recently included in a photo shoot with dear Ishna Jacobs. What you see is version 1, not a perfect fit on me personally, but special enough to always get comments from strangers when I wear it. I call that a success as the form and material are very understated, just in the way I intended. And the photos are simply otherwordly, conveying a strong mood, magic seen by Ishna's eyes. I've been very inspired by Anton Corbijn's photography and that was our only starting point. We were looking for a location that would strike a balance between natural and man made, we needed complex light on a brightly lit summer's day. The goal was more portrait than fashion photography and I must say it was a thrill to relax and trust being in front of the camera, as it's something I'm quite scared of.

winter warmth - Arctic Spell

I brought some old stock with me from my recent trip to Finland. I made these tops and vests when I still lived in Finland as part of a collection called Arctic Spell.

The material is 100% wool, short furry pile with a knit base. The textile was made by a Finnish company and I've never seen it anywhere else. The buttons are thin disks of oxidised silver coloured metal.

Ville Suomaki worked his camera magic on the wintery Ruissalo beach just outside Turku. Kaisa was the perfect model, getting changed outdoors while it kept snowing... cool in every sense of the word. At least these garments are warm!

I'm setting up a shop at Felt to sell these and other garments, so you can soon click your way there to get your own!

from the archive: Smirnoff International Fashion Awards

When I was sorting through boxes of old stuff while visiting Finland, I came across this wearable arts creation from my design student days... 

It might have been 1995 when I drew three sketches to enter the Smirnoff International Fashion Awards and was one of the ten that got accepted to the national final. The jury chose this design out of the three (it actually wasn't my own favourite) and I had a couple of months to make it. I called the ensemble Verso (Sprout) and made it out of little wooden pegs. I spent my summer holidays drilling a hole in each peg lengthways, stained them darker and then threaded them together into a net-like structure... 

I loved the way the structure made a wooden "textile" that draped well. By the time it came to making the metallic undergarment I had run out of steam and never really liked the way that part turned out. I still love the wooden shoulder piece and should really keep it and maybe take some photos of it worn with a simple dress.

The whole competition was a wonderful experience in itself, with trips to the capital with a wonderful fellow student Tytti Thusberg who I still count as a good friend and who ended up winning and travelling to South Africa with her felt creation to represent Finland in the International event. The jury included some well known journalists and other fashion folk, including the then Marimekko CEO Kirsti Paakkanen.

I was already upcycling and made myself a dress out of an old curtain found in a Kuopio charity shop. For some reason it ended up as part of our graduation show in Helsinki about a year later, where someone from the audience bought it. I wonder if the pattern in still lurking in my stash, as I made a nice job with the neck/shoulderline!

My oh my it's been quiet here this year. Not a peep since January *blush*.

To bring the blog to up to date I'll have to start by a little follow up on the Black Nightshade experiment, where I used ripe berries to dye a fine silk scarf. The good news is the scarf has had quite a bit of wear since then. The very pale pinkish colour from Pineapple Sage got a deeper slightly bronzy hue, which happens to go very well with my natural hair colour. I've seen that many times before: when plant dyed garments match your own colouring, they can be unusually flattering and very easy to combine with other colours in your wardrobe (providing they suit you too). It's quite baffling how a basically boring beige scarf can do anything for you, but you never know until you try it on!

I was taking a short leave from blogging, but I totally dropped the habit when my previous laptop gave up the ghost. It's amazing how you can keep yourself connected on a little fruity gadget, but eventually I was very relieved to move on from mini-size.

Another distraction was going for a quick dash overseas...

To visit family in Finland. It had been almost 5 years from my previous visit and the jump from late summer straight into a snow flurry was quite an experience. I picked up a rental car from the airport and headed straight into the traffic on snowy roads, on the other side of the road... Thankfully I wasn't particularly jet-lagged, so I got myself to the destination all safe and sound.

During my brief stay I feasted on sights of Marimekko and Arabia designs, planning what to purchase on my next visit, which will be very soon! There's so many cool colours to choose from (Iittala Kastehelmi)...

Not only revisiting the design heritage I grew up with, I had many boxes of things from my design studies to go through. Sketches, cloth, garments and patterns got sorted and packed and what wasn't thrown away, I shipped here! More on that later.

After travels I've been busy with preparations to buy the house I've been living in for a couple of years. Ooh I love making plans for improvements! After lots of budgeting and getting reports and quotes the process finally reached the settlement day, which means we've got our house! The kitchen upgrade plans have come along nicely. I look forward to showing you some before and afters in a couple of months!