What I wore weekly

Braaain-braaain-braaain, feed the braaain…

1. Just a beautiful story of crafty people making beautiful things + the magic that wool is: A Family History in Hats.

2. So, with the new KonMari-mania going around thanks to Netflix (this is a reasonable review + get the basis of Kondo’s method explained in a 15-point clickbait list here)… Some organizing basics from Spanish professional organizers + a very ironic list of ‘buy this stuff to make sure you get rid of stuff’: (in Spanish) Cinco claves para ordenar tu casa de una vez por todas.

3. And a BuzzFeed sermon on being organized as the socially responsible thing to do: Being Organized Is A Gift I Give Myself And Other People. While I’m typically better at giving sermons than appreciating them, this: “Being flaky isn’t cute; it’s disrespectful. This isn’t the intention, of course. (And, in fact, most of the disorganized people I know are actually trying to make too many people happy.) But the reality is that being close to someone who is consistently all over the place requires a tremendous amount of emotional labor”.

4. I don’t know who threw the bomb, but people in many places, including the f*ing Wall Street Journal, have suddenly – and simultaneously – grasped the problematic choice between real and faux fur. Gosh, get a second-hand anything and let it go… Examples: (a) Real Fur vs. Fake Fur: The Latest Dilemma for Socially Conscious Consumers; (b) Fashion or Faux Pas: The Conversation About Fur Became Far More Nuanced in 2018; (c) Real Fur is Bad for Animals. Fake Fur is Bad for the Earth. What the Hell Do We Do Now?

5. For pure pleasure, City Hermit: The Style Of Allen Ginsberg. And to throw in some contrast from the squares ‘who were burned alive in their innocent flannel suits on Madison Avenue amid blasts of leaden verse and the tanked-up clatter of the iron regiments of fashion‘, an ode to the same flannel: Better than Wool Flannel Trousers.

*

What I was writing about a year ago: #100wears: Bik Bok parka.

What I was wearing a year ago (see how many items coincide!): #whatiwore 2018w03 + Sunday links.

*

I’m still trying to figure out if I want to say anything new about the ‘Tidying Up with Marie Kondo‘ whirlpool, aside from the fact that everybody thinks it’s hilarious to forward me all possible coverage of it… Anyways, have you seen it? Has it inspired you to empty your wardrobe and see how big your mountain is? Or are you the one sharing the jokes? The best one I’ve seen so far (in Spanish) was about Marie Kondo suggesting people keep only three relatives. Captures the spirit of her method quite precisely, imho, especially after the Holiday season.

“It is the brain, the little gray cells on which one must rely. One must seek the truth within – not without.” But first you have to feed those little gray cells:

1. Some basic tricks our minds (and retailers) play against us: 10 Situations When We Lose Our Common Sense and Buy Useless Stuff.

2. Mending has some serious benefits – Mending as a philosophy of life: 9 reasons for why it’s worth it. My favorite being ‘Mending is prefect for practicing imperfection’. The whole blog is a cute gem full of thoughtfulness and sustainable ideas, unfortunately inactive since September 2018, offering posts titled What makes a garment repair-worthy? and Mending knits: 3 favourite darns.

3. The internet classic on second shifts and all mental work that goes into maintaining a household, typically done by women: You should’ve asked by Emma Clit.

4. In 2018 I started to follow – and learned a lot – from several menswear blogs: Heddels (especially remarkable for their Fade of the Day section showcasing worn out garments), Put This On, and Die, Workwear! Maybe I just haven’t found the right women’s fashion blogs for this time in my life but I’m really enjoying the historical and aesthetic obsessions of these people. And then I found this: ‘Every once in a while, I’ll hear a woman say how she wishes a piece of menswear could be made for the female form, or how she’s excited to see one of her favorite designers take inspiration from the men’s aisle. Which is funny because, just as often, I find myself inspired by what women today are wearing. As society has wrestled with the concept of gender over the last hundred years, fashion has followed. And while there’s been a bit push and pull – from the strictly gender delineated world of gray flannel suits and A-frame skirts, to the space-age unisex uniforms of the late 1960s – we’re now at a point where gender takes on a much more complex and nuanced meaning in terms of how clothing is worn’.

5. For a contrast with menswear (or, depending how you look at it, to combine with their beloved knit ties), here you have a lady who did the impossible – made the crochet look glamorous: Greta Plattry. Here you have a couple of write-ups about her and photos of her designs from the glorious 1950s – 1, 2, 3 (the third link gives you also the original prices and the conversion in today’s dollars; gives you a thought about casual swimwear as investment pieces and the radical change clothing prices have undergone in last 50+ years).

*

What I was writing about a year ago: The capsule is dead, long live the spreadsheet!

What I was wearing a year ago (see how many items coincide!): #whatiwore 2018w02 + Sunday links (the 100th post!).

*

Do you have menswear inspirations? Or blogs you read for a once-removed value? For example, for me the menswear blogs are teaching to pay attention to detail that somehow are easier to gloss over in women’s fashion. Anyways, all new reading suggestions will be appreciated.

The year might be new, but the brain has to be fed:

1. I am still a sucker for a good fashion anecdote, obviously, especially if it’s about somebody’s whim becoming an unexpected hit: Bernstein’s Folly. Or protest fashion that then loses its meaning – Wretched Excess: The Rebellion of the Wide-Leg Pant. Or just completely weird ideas, like having designated drinking jackets as to not to ruin the good suits – Ivy Workwear Style Via Princeton University’s Beer Jackets.

2. A short look at the gilets jaunes from a purely fashion point of view: The Power of the Yellow Vest.

3. If the Holiday season has tired your liver, kidneys, and/or brain and you have been entertaining the idea to never ever consume something again, turns out that Vice (!) has a whole straight edge section (!) dedicated to ‘the drugs are bad, mkay’: (a) Smoking Weed Can Be a Lot of Fun, But Let’s Not Pretend it Doesn’t Fuck You Up; (b) When Partying Becomes a Problem: How I Managed to Quit Drink and Drugs; (c) How Giving Up Drink and Drugs in Your Twenties Can Change Your Life; (d) This Is Why Gen Z Isn’t Into Drink or Drugs; (e) Quitting Alcohol Doesn’t Have to Be the End of Your Social Life. The funniest and scariest cultural changes in substance abuse I found there were the pressures stemming from the footprints such behavior leaves on one’s social media: it all will be photographed if not filmed, will project a ‘bad’ image, your prospective employers will be able to see it, your puffy face will look uglier in the selfies… and, in this competitive economy where serious people start to prepare for their career in the kindergarten, ain’t nobody got time for that anyways.

4. I don’t own anything Elizabeth Suzanne, their aesthetics are mostly not really my style, and I know that their way of working implies a price point inaccessible to most, but I just can’t help but love the way they do business: 2018: A Reflection and Recap and 2018 Holiday FAQs.

5. Those who have made a new year’s resolution to travel more, don’t. It’s a dirty business. Literally. (In Spanish) Cada turista contamina al día en Barcelona el equivalente a conducir 410 kilómetros. Go to a library and read  a book instead!

*

What I was writing about a year ago: How expensive is an ethical wardrobe? 2017 second half money talk.

What I was wearing a year ago (see how many items coincide!): #whatiwore 2018w01 + Sunday links.

*

So, what are your new year’s resolutions? Teetotalism or getting a beer jacket? More travel or more books? Doing more or contaminating less?

Om-nom-nom, here we go with a nice hefty portion of brain food to finish off 2018:

1. People either ignore them on hate them these days, but once they were all the rage – Artificial Intelligence: A Guide To Synthetic Fibers.

2. And if you are going to proclaim yourself as a natural fiber person, The Types of Cottons You Should Know.

3. Ha! The consistent theft and forgery of design can be a good thing for fostering in-house production and integrated supply chains at least at the highest shelves of fashion industry: Fashion’s Notoriously Controlling Luxury Brands Are Busy Bringing Everything They Can In-House.

4. And more garment history so that you would have an idea about the history behind an now-ubiquitous design: The Boot That Became “The Chelsea”.

5. It has been 120 years since Veblen’s The Theory of the Leisure Class and 40 since Bourdieu’s Distinction, and still our fashion choices tell our politics and social class by a mile away: Cambridge Analytica Used Fashion Tastes to Identify Right-Wing Voters and Cambridge Analytica Used Consumers’ Fashion Preferences to Target Them with Pro-Trump Messaging.

*

What I was writing about a year ago: Fashion, sustainability and tidying books I read in 2017.

What I was wearing a year ago (see how many items coincide!): #whatiwore 2017w52.

Also, this is the 200th blog post at Un Armario Verde en 100th #whatiwore post. You can scroll through all those posts here (if you want the weird Mediterranean seasons: Winter, Spring, Summer, and Autumn) or see them all at a glance on Pinterest here. All together it looks rather spectacular, and the data lover in me squeals alright about such abundance of consistent data.

*

What do you think your fashion choices tell about you? Could you be politically targeted due to your looks or would that be a total miss? Do you camouflage or express your true self via clothing, ehm, wearing your heart on your actual sleeves?

Nom-nom-nom…

1. If you wanted a reminder why fast fashion is not a good idea neither as a gift nor as a last minute sequin dress provider: (a) Global garment workers exploited as big brands pressure suppliers: Report; (b) 5 Years After Pay Pledge, HnM Still Isn’t Paying Laborers a “Living Wage”; (c) Bangladesh to eject safety inspectors brought in after Rana Plaza disaster. Stay away from those people! + also, The Biggest Fake News in Fashion, aka ‘fashion as we know it is bad for the environment and pollutes a lot, but we cannot really say that it is the second most polluting industry’.

2. And if you wanted a suggestion list for your 2018 resolutions: Ten simple ways to act on climate change. Yes, you already know these by heart but have you actually tried to apply these to your life? All 10? Half? Just 3? Let me remind you that the 4 most effective on the individual level are: having less children, going car free, flying less, and switching to plant-based diet.

3. A long(ish) read on the sudden appearance (in the common social consciousness) of one of the trendiest sustainability issues: The plastic backlash: what’s behind our sudden rage – and will it make a difference?

4. And just for historical fashion fun – The Pilgrims: The Original Sadd Boys [for whom black was too daring of a color].

5. An occasional uplifting piece of new that is supposed to make us feel hopeful about fashion: The UK workers’ co-op filling in fast fashion’s gaps and here you can buy from that co-op: Community Clothing.

And as a community service: In Mapping, Size Matters + more about Gall–Peters projection. Because you are old enough to know that maps are political and that Africa is bigger than Greenland or Europe. You are welcome!

*

What I was writing about a year ago: 7 dresses x 3 months: Lessons learnt.

What I was wearing a year ago (see how many items coincide!): #whatiwore 2017w51.

*

Have you already prepared your 2019 resolutions/goals? Are you giving up something? Are you starting something new? Did your 2018 sustainability resolutions work out?

Hello there, we specialize in the best brain food around here:

1. Knowing my tireless advocacy work for laundering less – proof 1, proof 2 – I recommend this cute BuzzFeed survey of figuring out how much of a cleanliness freak are you in comparison with (let’s not talk about the survey design or its representativity) the average American millennial: Ok, This Poll Is The Place To Confess How Often You Actually Wash These Things. Obviously, I don’t mean to say that the average person is right, just to point out that there is a lot of heterogeneity in habits that still allows survival and that critical judgement has to be applied.

2. Feminist analysis from when subtle, symbolic sexism in politics was a worry – The Princess Effect: How women’s magazines demean powerful women—even when they’re trying to celebrate them. Oh, 2014, I miss you!

3. I keep coming across excerpts from Alison Matthews David’s Fashion Victims: The Dangers of Dress Past and Present and it looks delicious. Take a look: 7 Ways Victorian Fashion Could Kill You. Into 2018 reading list it goes!

4. And continuing on the topic on trusting your own judgement: the glory of a minimalist purge (of quite an extreme case, I’d dare to say) in I Surrendered My Wardrobe and the equally true story how a tiny wardrobe might be only a temporary therapy instead of a permanent solution for your true self in The Anxiety of the Minimalist Closet. Relax and do you at your own pace, if you are suffering from millennial shit anxieties you probably still have at least 50 healthy years to live, you have time to explore all kinds of dressing. I, of course, recommend a step-wise reduction and greening of your wardrobe…

5. And a party pooper which might or might not renew your sustainability pledges for the next year: Does Climate Change Mean You Should Fly Less? Yeah, Maybe. For me the balance between individual and collective action is the hardest part of the whole sustainability thing. I’m still figuring it out (17 flights in 2016, 23 in 2017, 8 in 2018 but 2019 already looks like a fly-a-lot year…) but starting to think is.. well, a beginning.

*

What I was writing about a year ago: #100wears: Hummel Madelaine Zip Jacket.

What I was wearing a year ago (see how many items coincide!): #whatiwore 2017w50 + Sunday links.

*

How do you deal with the ‘personal responsibility’ vs. ‘only massive social/political action can achieve the CO2 cut we need’? Is your propulsion towards radical lifestyle changes, community organizing, or just existential dread under the blanket? What to you do when the existential dread and helplessness comes?

Nom-nom-nom, said the little gray cells:

1. A bit of indigo fetish just for you: True Blue and Indigo Witches + raw, traceable wool fetish, too – Fleece patrol: How organic wool from Patagonia is creating sustainable luxury.

2. Funny fashion tips (and obsessions) around maintenance of hegemonic masculinities: My Father’s Fashion Tips and The Most Flattering Sweater?

3. The horrible stories of visible and undeniable pollution created by textile industry in loosely controlled places: (a) Bangladesh Pollution, Told in Colors and Smells, (b) The denim capital of the world: So polluted you can’t give the houses away, and (c) Dying for Meaning.

4. One of those weird, chain-of-unintended-consequences stories how politics created fashion structures in XVII century and how climate change is making it unviable now – The King of Couture: How Louis XIV invented fashion as we know it and Are Fashion Seasons Outdated?

5. And to put some fire in making nice, authentic for you – not necessarily ones made of 1940s originals, though – wardrobes Five Reasons Vintage Clothing Is Not Just “Old Used Clothes” (Even Though It Kind of Is), and Building a Vintage Closet: a few quick notes, and Building a vintage closet, Step 1: Who are you? There’s a whole series of these there…

*

What I was writing about a year ago: #KonMari for advanced minimalists.

What I was wearing a year ago (see how many items coincide!): #whatiwore 2017w49 + Sunday links.

*

I am more and more astonished about the collective wish to play winter here, and my willingness to take part. It has been sunny and oscillating between 16-18ºC lately, and streets are full with winter jackets and boots. (OK, and sunglasses too.) Of course, those are not thick enough for a really cold winter, but is very clearly not the same clothing that one wears when a Latvian summer hits exactly the same temperatures, or when a Spaniard travels to Scandinavia in August. And I should know better. I have had enough of those 10ºC summers. But there you have me, wearing wool tights in 18ºC and being cranky about sweating too much. Weird… Yes, yes, climate change, wool nostalgia manufactured by marketing, clinging to the picture book ideas what winter is, the paradoxical life of being cold inside (the no-heating life, anybody?) and warm outside, but I still find it a bit disturbing when there’s a mass market for poorly filled puffy jackets that have a winter look but keeps you warm to the level that a Latvian spring coat would.

Are people faking winter where you live or do you get a real one?

Because your gray cells deserve a feast:

1. And because ’tis the season: 12 Easy Ideas for a Sustainable(ish) Christmas.

2. And to reduce the stress and increase the lifespan of your most festive (hence usually the most exposed to stain catastrophes) garments: How to Remove (Almost) Every Stain from Your Clothes.

3. Oh, funny story for 2018: Victoria’s Secret Is Trying to Change With the Times. Or Is It? D-oh!

4. And on the other side of sex-segregated dressing and gendered narratives: The Sneaky Way Clothing Brands Hooked Men on Stretch Jeans.

5. Of course, this section wouldn’t be true to itself without some climate pessimism and tales on how the world is going down the toilet in a hand basket, courtesy of George Monbiot: In a World of Their Own and Hopeless Realism.

*

What I was writing about a year ago: Stop browsing fast fashion, browse the internet instead.

What I was wearing a year ago (see how many items coincide!): #whatiwore 2017w48 + Sunday links.

*

Do you have any plans for sustainable-ing Christmas? Less love miles? Less gifts? Less decoration? In my family this is the first year – after several years of discussions about such possibility – when the agreement is to not to give presents… We’ll see how that will go. So far it has been quite relaxing as the pressure to think up something reasonably fun, useful and sustainable for people who already have it all has been lifted.