A detail: Above you see the Barcelona part of this week… then I planned my suitcase,
Packed it suitcase full of winter stuff…
To get two weeks of Latvian and Russian autumn:
*
Orden a Tres podcast
This week at Orden a Tres podcast we talk about plants and their role in the KonMari™ universe – Ep. 9 KonMari™ más allá de los objetos: Plantas. You can also listen us on Spotify and Stitcher, and iTunes.
*
And for the gray cells:
1. Laurie Penny seeing the silver lining (whisper: fanfic will save the world) – We Can Be Heroes: How the Nerds Are Reinventing Pop Culture.
2. An obituary to department stories as places of beauty and longing: The Slow Death of Glamour. As for the present, A 7-Year Old Fashion Rental Company is Buying 193-Year Old Lord & Taylor.
3. When the purists see the irony that can be found among them: “Can’t Wait To See How This Breaks In,” Says Man Who Buys New Clothes Every Week. Meanwhile, you can still – unironically – learn about traditional Japanese hand-dyeing methods, mourn that Levi’s is No Longer Producing Any 501 Jeans in America, and worship Japanese denim: A Rare Visit to Kapital, Japan’s Denim Paradise.
4. The twisted realities of the influencer culture: Are the Most Valuable Brand Endorsements Free? Well, at least this one makes certain intuitive sense.
5. The status quo of the fashion industry? (a) The 76-Year-Long Evolution of New York Fashion Week; (b) The Denim Industry Needs to Find the Innovation Thread: Heritage labels face threats from the athleisure trend and growing demand for sustainable fashion; (c) It’s too late for ethical fashion: A sustainability expert explains that progress in the industry is cancelled out by the rate at which the fashion economy is speeding up; (d) Forever 21’s Expected Bankruptcy Filing Does Not Mark the Fall of Fast Fashion; (e) I can’t believe people still do the surprised ‘I just discovered the ills of fast fashion’ books and articles… but here you have another one only because it introduces the notion of ‘fashion bulimia’ (I’m unsure what the survivors of eating disorders think of this but it is a powerful reframing): The environment and economy are paying the price for fast fashion — but there’s hope.
6. When gestures interpreted as sustainable became hip and sociologically weird: How Fancy Water Bottles Became a 21st-Century Status Symbol and Too Much of a Good Thing (on the mysterious multiplication of canvas totes).
7. I am really longing for some serious disruption, like this: Grounded. I just don’t yet have the courage to do it myself…
*
What I was writing about a year ago: September Swap (7th!) recap. Contains the swap to-do list that typically gets me in a knot and then I write these post-swap rants… I thought about maybe toning it down a bit for this week’s recap, but then decided that truth will make us free and maybe even prevent post-swap migraines (I’ve had only one in my life and that was after a swap).
What I was writing about two years ago: Six months of blogging and adjusting expectations. Oh, all those shattered expectations about going immediately viral… or shall we call it a strong belief in the quality of my content?!
What I was wearing a year ago: #whatiwore 2018w38 + Sunday links. Also wore this week: the WAG skirt and the Zara-Humana ruffle blouse (from this ‘I really really want to buy sth’ occasion a year ago).
What I was wearing two years ago: #whatiwore 2017w38. Repeated this week: my mom’s gingham dress, pearl earrings and the DIY mixed ‘pearl’ necklace.
*
Can you help but roll your eyes at the n-th media fast fashion outrage discovery moment? Please, dear people, it’s 2019, everybody knows… maybe not the details but the big picture is ignored only thanks to cognitive dissonance. I know, I know, you never know which piece of information will penetrate the defenses of somebody but it just gets painfully repetitive. I just find it hard to believe that there are still editors who would pay for a general ‘everything is wrong in fast fashion’ coverage. Dude, infiltrate, do profound qualitative work, do in-depth coverage of the alternatives, do something new, please!