A random update: A person who knows me very little but enough to be aware that we share certain sustainability concerns, asked if I had a lot of clothing as I’m always organizing something clothing related. The logic seemed to be that as I seemed to care a lot about a topic, I necessarily would own a lot of that, ehm, topic… Twisted logic, because it goes the other way: I have so little and approach the incomings with such suspicion that creating spaces that allow to choose carefully and to maintain the already owned is what I truly need. If other people benefit from it, good for them! Yes, you might have guessed, I’m trying to branch out into garment fixing events too…
But until then…
Fashion-related brain food for a rainy spring day:
While I’m mostly pissed off about sponsored content, here you have the other side – Alden Wicker on why content promoting brands should be sponsored and not gifted away by the bloggers. I find all the embedded marketing and sponsored content stuff extremely dodgy and weird, but it’s nice to see people being open about money.
As I am preparing to wander in the fixing and mending, here’s some basic inspiration: The Aesthetics of Mending and kintsugi. Also, this Spark Joy podcast episode featuring Lanecia Rouse Tinsley and her take on wabi sabi.
Behind the very encouraging title of ‘Americans have stopped trying to stuff more clothes into their closets’ the news is that *maybe* the consumption patterns are shifting slightly in the US and that the latest wave of fast fashion since the late 2000s hasn’t been such a change in comparison with the previous decade.
Brain food for eudaimonia:
Thomson, Judith Jarvis. 1976. ‘A defense of abortion.’ In Biomedical Ethics and the Law, pp. 39-54.
Deresiewicz, William. 2007. ‘Love on Campus‘: “Love is a flame, and the good teacher raises in students a burning desire for his or her approval and attention, his or her voice and presence, that is erotic in its urgency and intensity. The professor ignites these feelings just by standing in front of a classroom talking about Shakespeare or anthropology or physics, but the fruits of the mind are that sweet, and intellect has the power to call forth new forces in the soul. Students will sometimes mistake this earthquake for sexual attraction, and the foolish or inexperienced or cynical instructor will exploit that confusion for his or her own gratification. But most professors understand that the art of teaching consists not only of arousing desire but of redirecting it toward its proper object, from the teacher to the thing taught.”
The New Yorker 2016 profile on Martha Nussbaum ‘The Philosopher of Feelings‘ spun me off to her The New Republic pieces and the feminist battles depicted in her ‘The Professor of Parody: The Hip Defeatism of Judith Butler’ (pdf).
Lovely blog. Thanks for including me!
Thank you, Cynthia, for such lovely compilation! It really inspires to get mending.