what we love

Clothes, glorious clothes! Clothes are luscious, clothes are bread. Clothes are sexy, clothes are warm. Clothes are fantasy, clothes are necessity.

Clothes are simultaneously liquid & solid: They take the shape of the contained. But they possess their own fluidity & solidity as well. Our relationship with our clothes is cultural, historical, personal, ever evolving, exciting, painful, complex. Our clothes are essential extensions of ourselves--and they are essences in their own right.

Perhaps it is at least true that we all clothe ourselves according to which of our parts, physical or psychological, we wish to reveal, & which we wish to conceal. As artist Karen LaMonte--who makes stunning glass sculptures of dresses--says, "Clothing both protects and projects. It is armor and costume, plumage and camouflage."

What many of us don't realize when we buy clothes is what the clothing itself conceals about its own history, what our ignorance of it reveals & projects about us, & what we can do to protect ourselves & our world by becoming better educated about these things. This doesn't mean we'll have to wear our old clothes into the ground, or our hearts on our ragged sleeves; it means we have the opportunity to "re-imagine" our sartorial circumstances.

The Worldwatch Institute 2004 Reports:

THE TRUE COST OF CLOTHING

The number of garments bought by US consumers increased 73% between 1996 and 2001, while apparel prices have fallen 10% over the past decade.
By 2001, the average US consumer bought 48 new pieces of clothing a year.
Rates of consumer discard, meanwhile, rose by 10% a year throughout the 1990s, according to Goodwill.
Sweatshop workers in Mexico earn 85 cents an hour for their labor, while in Indonesia the pay is only 15 cents an hour. Even in the US, a worker may earn less than $5 for making a garment that will sell for $100.
A cotton T-shirt blended with polyester can release approximately 1/4 of its weight in air pollutants and 10 times its weight in carbon dioxide.

DO YOU KNOW HOW THOSE CLOTHES WERE MADE?
(from Worldwatch Institute)

Most of the world's clothing is manufactured in sweatshops in poorer countries, where workers earn less than they need to live, face cramped or unsanitary conditions, and are often subjected to physical, sexual and verbal abuse. First-hand accounts from factories producing for many designer companies report that people often work more than 100 hours a week, and unions are not permitted.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT FIBER CONTAINS?
(from Re-imagine Style)

Cotton uses approximately 25% of the world's insecticides. In the US in 2000, 84 million pounds of pesticides were sprayed on the 14.4 million acres of conventional cotton grown in the country, ranking cotton second behind corn in total amount of pesticides sprayed. The EPA considers seven of the top 15 pesticides used on cotton in 2000 in the US as "possible," "likely," "probable," or "known" human carcinogens. --Center for a New American Dream
Most synthetic fibers are made from petroleum. Their manufacturing requires consumption of further petroleum resources, and dyeing usually involves the use of toxic chemicals.
Rayon, acetate & other fabrics are made from wood; only virgin timber is suitable & much of it comes from developing countries with weak environmental laws.
Wool & other fibers from animal sources usually involve the degradation of land through over-grazing, as well as questionable treatment of animals.
The widely used dry-cleaning solvent perchloroethylene ("perc") is classified as a probable carcinogen by the EPA & can be a serious groundwater contaminant.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT'S IN YOUR CLOSET?

What's in your closet that you never wear? Take it all out & rethink it. Maybe it can be mended, re-fit, dyed, or restyled for you. Or, with our help, have a swap-and-reconstruct party with your friends!

DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR OPTIONS ARE?
(from Reimagine Style)

Buy fewer articles of clothing, choosing good quality & styles that will last.
Think first! Do you really need this? Will you really wear it?
Buy fair trade clothing & clothing made from organic cotton or hemp
Don't shop at stores that carry sweatshop garments
Buy used & vintage
Swap, give away, sell or re-make what you already own
Sew your own or hire a tailor or seamstress to make or alter clothes you'll love to wear
Use a perc-free dry cleaner

AND

Choose Lyric Couture creations or custom-mades: One-of-a-kind clothing composed of reprised goods for conscious, creative consumption.

contact:

alice@lyriccouture.com

603.835.6783