Fashion With a Conscience

Blogging came to a complete standstill almost a week ago! I had several major projects and issues going on and then went out of town Friday through Sunday. My blogs were very neglected, I'm sad to say. But now I'm back.

Today's Retail Love is more about a retail fashion trend than a particular product. It's an idea that I've never fully thought about until I happened upon a Vogue UK blog written by Livia Firth, wife of my Secret Boyfriend Colin Firth. (Secret only because my obsession is one-sided of course; Colin is oblivious to my intense admiration.) I should hate Mrs. Firth, but really, I think I like her as much as I like her husband! As some of you may know, Colin Firth has been nominated for a slew of acting awards for his turn in A Single Man. Livia Firth's blog, The Green Carpet Challenge, is about her desire to dress with a conscience, to only wear environmentally sustainable, repurposed, recycled, vintage or organic materials for the many red carpet events she'll attend between January and March. This includes the accessories, such as the shoes and jewelry. So basically, she will do the complete anti-thesis of every other Hollywood female during awards season, which is to have multiple gowns designed just for them with accessories to match. And the biggest part of her challenge? To still look as completely stylish and elegant as the rest of the ladies on the red carpet, not a small feat in Hollywood! 
Beautiful Livia Firth went to the Golden Globes in a repurposed wedding dress (not her own)! Who would have thought?!

Livia Firth's commitment to eco-friendly fashion is genuine: she is the co-owner, with her husband, of Eco-Age in London, which in their words "offers inspiration, ideas and specific domestic solutions for all those who want to lead a greener and more energy efficient life." On fashion, Eco-Age's founders "feel passionately about clever design that keeps both environmental and social justice in mind while proving that fashion can have a destiny other than landfill (which is our enemy). But, in common with many fashion lovers we are all disenchanted with fast, cheap fashion and consider its impact to be not just off-putting but downright unacceptable." Ha! Take that, Walmart.

So her blog has made me think twice about the half-dozen $4 t-shirts I just bought for Thalia, no doubt made from cheap fabrics destined for the landfill once they start falling apart. And the not-so-cheap jeans I bought her that were certainly sewn together in an overseas factory by someone nearly Thalia's age and paid the tiniest fraction of its retail price. *sigh.* Can I afford to develop a fashion conscience?!

What would it be like to live in a world where you bought clothes designed and made by people who were like you and lived, not in another country far away, but possibly in your own region or state? Alabama Chanin, a company featured on Livia's blog, is an interesting example of how much it might cost to dress in environmentally responsible clothing made in your own country. The company employs stay-at-home Moms who sew the clothing in their own homes and are paid decently for their work. The fabrics used are made from Alabama cotton. The designs are limited edition or one-of-a-kind. Not mass produced for your local discount store, but made just for you (almost)! A t-shirt, hand-made, is $75.   Description of $75 t-shirt: "100% Organic Cotton with 100% Recycled Cotton backing. All of our products are Fair Trade and Made in the USA." 
Does knowing that a Mom, perhaps someone with kids my age, created that t-shirt make the price seem more reasonable? I don't know, maybe.

Food for thought, the next time I go shopping. While my closet will never be full of awards-night gowns, perhaps it's time I started paying more attention to the where/what/who of my wardrobe?

Plaid Stallions

Getting sick always sucks. But being sick during the holidays really sucks. So unfair. I wish I could have a do-over for the two weeks I was "out" (and still officially not 100% yet). All the things I didn't get to do, the friends I didn't get to see. Oh well, enough complaining. My blog's been calling out to me, begging to be updated, but I've ignored it because, you guessed it, I've been feeling sick lately!

Today's post was going to be a rant about some aspect of volunteerism in the parenting sphere, but then I changed my mind because that would just depress us all. Saving that for later! haha

Instead, I guarantee that I will bring a smile to everyone's faces (who is actually reading this). Everyone, I present the blog I go to whenever I need an honest-to-goodness laugh: The Plaid Stallions. Both the blog and the website are seriously fall-out-of-your-chair and pee-in-your-pants funny if you were a child of the Seventies. If you weren't, then it might be mildly amusing or even downright confusing. But if you lived it, you will love it!

I think if I were a male with a little more time on my hands (ok, alot more time) then I could have dreamed up this website. As it is, I have been obsessed with catalogs since I was a child. Obsessed. Apparently, so was the owner of Plaid Stallions. The only difference is that he kept alot of his catalogs and keeps finding more, and I don't have any of mine because my Mom threw them away.

The website name is Plaid Stallions: Rambling and Reflections on 70s Pop Culture. Plaid Stallions, in it's own words, is "mocking the seventies a catalog page at a time." Seventies toys, fashions, housewares, Halloween costumes, etc. are all there in living catalog color and even some vintage TV commercials. The blog is a daily feast of 70s gems such as:


and this:

(For more 70s "fashion" commentary, see my earlier post about this on my other blog.)

It's not always cheesy fun though. Sometimes I just have to smile really big when I see the toys from my childhood so lovingly revered:

I LOVED THIS TOY! I still have it, my girls play with it, and the elevator still works!

Received excitedly some of this for Christmas, either 1977 or 1978, only to have my Mom give it to the neighbor's child when we moved away. Still mourning the loss 30 years later.

And some days I even feel sad (again) about the toys I desperately wanted but never could convince my Mom to buy:

Barbie Airplane, as seen briefly at a birthday party in the mid-70s and always wanted, even now!

This website and blog brings back memories of pretty much my entire 70s life-- what my parents wore, what my brother and I played with for a whole decade, what we watched on TV, the colors and textures of the world around me.