I try to limit my time spent on Facebook. Though I like using the network to keep up with faraway friends and family, I find the content and culture of the app to be generally toxic. Not the kind of noxious that knocks you out with one whiff, but the kind that seeps in through the guise of casual pastime and keeps you coming back for more until your hooked.

Today I signed on and managed to (mostly) dodge temptations to get caught up this indignation or that righteousness. The key is to speed past wordy posts full of all caps, snarky memes, or links to sites whose names contain words like viral or patriot or Turks. In pursuit of cute summertime photos of nieces and nephews, I even resisted the urge to stop and coo over a Facebook memory, which depicted a slimmer, happier-looking me from 7 years ago.

In my midday work lull, I just wanted to feel that little bump I get from seeing images of my favorite people, nothing more. But then a post from one of my oldest friends caught my attention: she was lamenting having read about or witnessed a series of scary events that’d taken place this week in the town where she lives. It’s the town I grew up in. The one I remember as being the sort where you could leave your doors unlocked and your children outside past dusk without worry. It’s the Smalltown, USA that I keep in my memory as being clean and kind and free of big city problems like homelessness. Now, despite my efforts to block out gnarly news in my feed, I was faced with a report that there is a substantial and growing population of homeless people in my hometown. When asked about what’s happened to cause the shift, her response, in a word: Opioids.

In this prescription-soaked culture, opioids are the hottest trend.

So hot, in fact, that some reports credit the class of drugs with the deaths of 33,000 Americans in 2015. And while, these deaths include overdoses from illegal drugs, like heroin, the wildfire spread of opioid abuse can be attributed to legal prescription drugs.

Rx meds are so ubiquitous, so ingrained in popular culture, that the image of those puke orange pill bottles has found it’s way onto the fashion racks. What you see above is not something from a medicine cabinet, but a phone case from the Spring Summer 2017 collection by Moschino. I was engaged in a different addictive pastime – browsing the Net-a-porter.com sale – when I spotted it in all of it’s disgrace. And the timing couldn’t be worse. I’d just learned that my innocent hometown was being stained by fallout of pill-popping addictions when I saw this garish display of everything I hate about fashion: tasteless, wasteful, and self-destructive consumerism.

The design, from a creative director whose a known thief and proponent of throwaway culture, even features a cheeky expiration date, reminding any consumer with a conscious of the planned obsolesence found in too many seasonal collections. The trouble is the culture (via social media, medication, and shopping) has so many of us walking around unconscious – numb, dumb, and stumbling about looking for the next fix – that we’re not readily aware of how damaging it can be to participate in these dopamine-inducing habits.

Net-a-porter describes this phone case as “playful.”

In this TV commercial a family sits down to dinner as their apparently teen-aged daughter talks quickly about …

the message: a girl has nothing valuable to say and you can stamp our her desire to express herself by feeding her processed carbs and dairy with a healthy dose of synthetic flavoring. In an instant a burgeoning woman learns to quiet her angst with food. Then, when after years of emotional eating she’s the owner of an American average amount of cellulite and dull skin, she’ll be shamed for not being worthy of a wedding, or summertime or Halloween.

Source: Imagery & Culture

Source: Business Insider

There is a common myth that people in Northern California do not care about fashion. This is false, of course, as anyplace that supports a class system has a system of style values; and NorCal is a vigorously classist place.

The myth might be fueled by the misunderstanding that caring about fashion means you desire to reflect the pages of Vogue magazine. With this belief you’ll easily miss the trends and tropes conveyed by the residents of this part of the country, who are sooner to take their queues from the brands seen at the X-games than those shown at Fashion Week. Folks here like to show off their labels, too, mind you. Yet instead of Hermes they choose Hurley; rather than Oscar de la Renta, they love O’Neill; and the highest praise goes not to Prada, but to Patagonia.

Trendspotter that I am, I peeped these preferences immediately. Cynic that I am, the trend turned me off immediately. I’d go into Patagonia stores (outlets, that is) trying on jackets, pulling on pants, poring over fabric tags, hoping to spot the reason I should be gagging over china-made polyester garments. I couldn’t find anything in the make of the clothing that made it instrinsically better than, say, Champion or another brand with retail price a fraction of those of Patagonia. I wrote it off as just another status label and, indeed, many people in this region wear it to convey class.

However, if I’ve learned nothing else from my two years in the Bay Area it’s that cynicism isn’t just unproductive, it’s downright destructive! So when the press release for Patagonia’s Worn Wear program came across my inbox I resisted the urge to send it straight to the bin and actually gave it an audience. I am pleasantly surprised:

Patagonia’s Worn Wear program was created in 2013 as a way to encourage people to take good care of their gear, washing and repairing as needed. The program aims to keep clothing, regardless of brand, in circulation for as long as possible. When it’s time for a replacement, we want you to invest in something that lasts.

That’s why Patagonia makes the best quality, most functional products in the world, guarantees them for life and owns the biggest garment repair facility in North America. And it’s why were going on tour – bringing Worn Wear’s critical message to communities across the country.

“There is nothing we can change about how we make clothing that would have more positive environmental impact than simply making less,” notes Patagonia CEO Rose Marcario. “Worn Wear is a celebration of quality products and their relationship to our lives. It’s a simple but critical message: keep your gear in action longer and take some pressure off our planet.”

The notion that one should repair clothing instead of chucking them is one that is resonates with the Manifesto. It seems so reasonable, but so few brands spend anytime speaking to clothing care and repair – presumably because their business models thrive on throwaway culture. This action by Patagonia makes me feel better about the brand’s premium price tags. I believe in investing in good brands, especially when those brands then invest in new ideas that promote responsible consumption.

Learn more about Worn Wear and get tour dates at Patagonia.com.

Skeletal themes are trending in fashion categories from mass market to the so-called “high end.” I can’t help but see a correlation between the fad and the fashion zeitgeist’s perverse preference for boney bodies.

And beyond the beauty tyranny, there’s a mood brewing in pop culture that glamorizes death and destruction. Kids are “born to die” and they revel in life before annihilation. Live fast | die young | be wild | have fun.

Show Your Bones by eightyjane on polyvore.com

The throw away culture is reaching a fever pitch. Planned obsolence has bled beyond consumer products to stain the very planet itself. Our very singular Earth, consumed and headed for the heap, like so much fad-laden polyester. We can’t fix it and it’s gone out of style anyway. Chuck it; get a new one.

The new morality, the position posted by the red-blooded hometown hero is that success lies in interstellar colonialism. There are perfectly palatable planets that are unoccupied by anything like us – i.e. anything that matters.

This place sucks and we’re a mess, so lets bail. There’s nothing quite like new (moon)shoes and fake hair to clean the slate. Where to? Perhaps a place where serpentine skin is free to be.

So don’t be surprised, when you look up from your knitting needles, to find we’ve all gone offline. If you’re still watching you’re not part of the in crowd, anyway.

photo credit

Apparently, companies don’t expect fast fashion consumers to care about durability or tailoring. Unfortunately, that may be true about much of the fashionista hoard. For a growing number of us, however, we just don’t believe the hype… at least not until we’ve seen, touched, felt it for ourselves.

The commercials for the Peter Pilotto for Target collection certainly do inspire one to seek out a sensual experience with the brand. The models make the garments look fun, stylish, and easy to wear. So when February 9th came about I headed to my local target to for a first person experience. Now, I don’t expect that I can turn a hem with the likes of Jourdan Dunn, but the mark of good clothes is that they fall beautifully on even the “average” body. And, for the most part, they did not do my average body well.

I tried on a size medium in four different styles:

• A long sleeved tee ($19.99) made of a cotton/modal blend, which felt nice on the body but didn’t look like much;
• a sweatshirt ($29.99), which I thought looked great, but the cotton/polyester blend felt awful on my skin – it was the kind that you could tell would fade quickly;
• a tank ($24.99) made from a cotton/rayon/spandex blend, which looked like something you might find at Cato or Sears;
• a 100% polyester dress ($39.99) that looked bad on the hanger, bad on my body, and felt like dragging fingernails across a chalkboard. Blegh.

It should be noted that I was shopping at a Target store in Santa Cruz, CA – a smallish college town where the demand for Pilotto is small. Accordingly, their selection was also small, which may have precluded some of the collections best pieces. It’s also true that it’s hard to make well-fitting clothes when you are limited to S, M, L sizing. If the clothing warranted it, the fit issues could be resolved by a good tailor. However, I’m reluctant to spend resources altering a piece of polyester that’s not built to last.

If this is to be my only encounter with the Peter Pilotto brand, as it will be for the majority of the population, it’s not a very good representation. The magic of artistry and quality craftsmanship, as seen on the SS14 designer runway show below, is all but lost in this mass-market effort. It makes me wonder if the designer line, too, would be a disappointment. So when ones budget does upgrade enough to allow for the purchase of a $2Kish dress, will she want the “real deal” or will she have by that time discarded her admiration for the brand along with the poorly-made clothes?

So the final verdict is that, no, the Peter Pilotto for Target clothes are not worth the cost. You are paying for hype and for status, as it were. This notion is demonstrated by the fact that a dress that’s available on the Target website for $29.99 sells for $39.99 at net-a-porter.com. The value of the dress is not instrinsic, and the shadow of my doubt is now cast over Net-a-Porter as well.

To be fair, it’s not impossible for these collaborations to produce a few palatable items. I have a cotton cardigan from the Thakoon for Target range that I still enjoy regularly. The problem is that in order to get a few gems, a glut of crap is churned out in a supply chain that is rife with waste at every stage. Then a large amount of it ends up in landfills within a few years. It’s madness!

Like the virus that is fast food, the destructive shopping tradition has spread from the U.S. to the rest of the world. The BBC is reporting a “scene of chaos” today at a store in Ireland where television sets were discounted from £179 to £99. A mere 80 pounds (96 Euro, 131 US dollars) is enough to incite people to violence.

The worst scenes tend to be recorded of people fighting over electronics at places like Wal-Mart (as seen in the video above). The much-hated big box store was the scene of a trampling death on Black Friday 2008. Numerous other incidents have been recorded at the chain – many of which are chronicled on blackfridaydeathcount.com.

Anything that induces a mob response is something that any awake & aware consumer should think twice about desiring. Especially so when the event follows what’s purported to be a day of thanks. The gluttony of feeding on food produced with questionable ethics now spills over into that same over-indulgence on cheaply made consumer products.

If shopping can’t (or won’t) be avoided, one should at least refrain from making purchases simply because an item is on sale, rather than because it is genuinely needed. Instead, The Fashion Cult promotes an austere approach to shopping be celebrated on this day. In an effort to plant the seed of responsible consumption, one might do any or all of the following.

• Shop only used – either in secondhand stores or online via sites like eBay.
• Use sales to obtain discounts on high quality investment pieces that you expect to use for decades.
• Buy only quality, locally-produced items at full price.
• Use time off to audit your wardrobe, checking each item for condition and aptness for your current body and lifestyle. Add missing items to your holiday wishlist, or to your resolutions for the new year.

The evidence of such sins comes into full view when the task of changing residences is at hand. If you’ve ever moved, you can probably relate to the feeling of amazement at the massive amounts of stuff that collects about you over the years. And the process not only forces an evaluation of quantity, but also the quality of that stuff, and its aptness for your lifestyle. When you take a step back and survey the hoard, a strange spector rises and displays to you the body your way of life has built. A body you may well be proud of, but which is no longer appropriate to the next phase of your existence. In this case the body must be burned down.

Now, wait! I’m not suggesting anyone pile their unwanted wares up and set fire to them. You can leave that literal act to the denizens of Black Rock City. Rather, to burn the body in this case means to catalyze the consumption of materials, such that they dissipate from your life. That pile of clothes in your closet may be just clutter to you, but to the world at large it is a valuable coalescence of various energy sources. You can “burn” this clump of energy by selling, donating, upcycling, and recycling the items – all of which are more soul satisfying than dragging the unused items along with you or, worse, sending them off the landfill.

In addition to lightening the load, the burn serves to provide an opportunity to build a new body, whose level and type of fitness is most appropriate to new circumstances. Such was the case when I moved from Atlanta to San Francisco. I burned a body of high heels and summer dresses so that I could rebuild with flannels and sensible shoes. The new body served me well for a time, but proved to be as transitional as my 8-month, Haight street sublet. Though temporary, this new body consisted of quality items purchased, mostly, from nearby thrift stores – Goodwill and Wasteland, in particular. So rather than give them to strangers, I decided to light the flame this time with a clothing swap.

Lucky for me, the fine folks at Epica Wines just happened to be in a giving mood and provided bottles of wine for my friends and I to enjoy while we traded sweaters, jackets, flannels, and other fog-worthy wardrobe items. So not only did I get to avoid the guilt of discarding items not used long enough, I got to spend some time in fellowship with kindred spirits – a much needed thing for anyone in a new city.

A clothing swap is, possibly, the least resource heavy means of composting your clothing. It’s certainly the most fun. It’s such a perfect method of burning (unswapped items get donated) that I’ve decided to make such events a regular part of maintaining a TFC approved closet – whether I’m moving or not. So if you’re feeling a little weighed down by your wardrobe it may be time to feel the heat. Get started by planning a clothing swap with your friends and see how being sensible about clothes can help save, not just the planet, but your soul.

Somedays, when it’s slow at work, I’ll take a walk around downtown and inevitably find myself at one of the many department stores around Union Square.

As much as I explore, I always make it a point to stop by H&M, because I like their men’s collection and they always have nicely pared-down versions of some the latest trends. When it comes to things I’d like to see in my wardrobe, I can usually count on H&M to have anticipated my desires, and ones that I can actually afford.

It’s actually pretty rare to see things I want or imagine at any given moment already in stores. It used to be that it took a couple years for companies to go ahead and manufacture the things I wanted on shelves a few seasons back.

With social media spreading our likes and influences quickly and efficiently, mass-industry is uncannily synchronous and effective in generating the wants and desires broadcasted by the hive mind. Every subculture seems to be represented with products of every variety immediately available on Etsy.com, or any number of small and medium sized internet companies. It seems even the largest companies are able to pick up on these trends enough to satisfy even some of the more picky or avant-garde fashionistas. I don’t know if I could call myself a fashionista, nor would I want to, but I will say that H&M reaches a nice middle-ground when I want to be fashion-forward (even a little bold) while still keeping an understated look.

A new line that H&M has been rolling out over that past few seasons has been their Conscious line, which features clothing that make “fashion sustainable and sustainability fashionable.” Colors in the Conscious Men’s line feature rich greens and dark navy blues, but with odd touches like a splash of floral or coat fringes, no doubt a moder. lists a line of organic and recycled fabrics. Their organic blends include linen, jute, and cotton, the latter of which H&M consumes more than any other clothing store worldwide. Their recycled threads include polyester, polymide, and of course, water-bottle plastic. They also sport Tencel, a silk-like proprietary fabric made from cellulose (generically known as Lyocell).

If you like the clothes that H&M provides, and you’re environmentally conscious, you might wonder how sustainable H&M really is. Their view on sustainability is surprisingly sophisticated, covering all their bases in their “seven ambitious commitments.”

Here, H&M has actually given us a framework to understand what they mean by “Conscious,” and more importantly, their understanding of sustainability. They’re not entirely exempt from the notion of greenwashing, being a very large company, but at the same time they don’t just stamp an “organic” imprint on a tag and call it a day. They incorporate an all-important factor in any discussion about sustainability, the people factor. Social equity, which is addressed in their seventh ambition of strengthening communities, is the glue that keeps sustainability relevant to a human discussion.

Yet in reality, H&M’s Conscious line of clothes is but a small portion of the store floor, and nothing more than a marketing gamble.Sure, conserving natural resources, using renewable or recycled materials, and keeping a small carbon footprint is important, but it doesn’t help much from a human-centric view unless you keep people at the center of the discussion. When you buy clothes, you might wonder about whether people are being displaced to make way for big industry to source raw material. Are these inhabitants benefitting from the company? These are all important considerations, ones that are difficult for any company honor completely let alone navigate responsibly. H&M says they are committed to these Seven Ambitions, but at the end of the day we are speaking of only one collection which is already on their sale rack. The rest of H&M no doubt operates like any world-wide corporation, where profitability is what keeps them competitive in a worldwide marketplace.

photo: 1, 2

The painting is part of a current exhibit “Girl with a Pearl Earring: Dutch Paintings from the Mauritshuis,” which features paintings from the golden age of Dutch influence in art and culture. The highlight of the exhibition for me included a pair of wedding portraits featuring the most exquisitely represented 17th century fashion. The jacquard fabrics, especially caught my eye, as the fabric style is very relevant to current fashion.

This painting, by Pieter Jacobsz Codde (Dutch, 1599-1678), has a similar style and shows an example of jacquard fabric with a similar floral pattern. The manner of juxtaposing extreme detail with impressionist-like strokes is really effective at portraying texture. In person, that is. Also of note in this period of fashion are the gigantic lace collars, which, though terribly impractical, were worn as status symbols.

From her clothes it is clear that this woman (above) is a woman of considerable status. She is well-to-do and fashionable: her dress is richly ornamented, around her neck is a Millstone ruffs. The millstone ruff is a round collar made of pleated white linen. It was fashionable in Holland from the late 16th century to about 1625. They began small, but became increasing broad until finally resembling millstones. Manufacturing such large ruffs was a complicated and time-consuming task for the specialists who made them – mostly Flemish or Dutch women. A ruff like this required a great deal of material, sometimes as much as 15 meters. Usually cambric was used, a fine linen often decorated with bobbin lace. After washing and starching, it was gathered or pleated and set on a collar and then ironed into circular shapes with ‘pipe’ irons. These costly collars or ruffs were worn by the well-to-do, both men and women.

Source

Not long after my visit to the de Young, I walked past this floral jacquard jacket in the window of a Zara store in the Financial District of San Francisco. Not long ago fabric like this was considered best left to grandma’s curtains. Now, however, jacquard, brocade, and damask fabric is common to trendy, contemporary fashion.