everything old is new again

We don't usually like to "recycle" content between our two blogs, but we just couldn't resist stealing this post from Bubby and Bean because it is oh-so-fitting over here at Smart. Sustainable. Style. Enjoy!

With a brand new year approaching, I thought I'd revisit a fashion project I did a little over a year ago, as inspiration/motivation to focus on more projects that involve creating pretty and new pieces from the old, unwanted, and discarded. I designed this vintage-inspired, 1950s style dress from mis-marked and excess candy wrappers given to me from the Tootsie Roll company. These wrappers (Charleston Chew!) were otherwise landfill-bound, and I paired them with vintage silk fabric and ripped pieces of tulle (to give fullness to the skirt) that I discovered at a local thrift store.

The project was part of an event called Sweet Chic that benefited the Spina Bifida Association of Illinois, and several Chicago fashion designers were invited to participate. It took me over a month to construct the dress, mainly because the wrappers themselves presented a major challenge (they ripped when I tried to sew them!).  I had to experiment with an endless variety of methods in order to successfully attach them to the fabric and each other, but in the end, it was more than worth the countless hours and late nights. The dress turned out quite well and was even exhibited at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art!

The most amazing part was the visual proof that you really can create new and beautiful pieces from materials otherwise considered to be useless. As a sustainable fashion designer, I'd worked with eco-friendly materials for years, but this was my first earth-conscious piece created solely via recycling. I hope to do a lot more of these type of projects in 2011.

xoxo, melissa

A Quest to Discover Forgotten Art, Yard Sale Style

Last summer, my friend Cheri and I decided on a whim to go on a random treasure hunt via yard sales.  Cheri is actually a seasoned pro at this type of thing, and has discovered/gathered some pretty incredible trinkets over the years.  This particular adventure didn't lead us to much beyond the typical chipped coffee mugs and partially-intact board games, but on our final stop, I spotted an interesting metal object buried among the poorly framed posters and VHS tapes.  It looked something like an old counter display for jewelry or neckties, but was badly rusted, perhaps hinting at some sort of outdoor use (gardening tool stand?), or maybe just simple neglect.  There was something really striking about it to me, so I forked over the $8 and took it home.

Since I'm on a new personal quest to allow (ahem, force) myself to spend my weekend days participating in activities that aren't work-related, I decided yesterday (a good 10 months after buying it) to clean this curious object and use it to make sense of the various balls of tangled necklaces in my bathroom drawers.  It was covered in enough rust to require a Tetanus shot just by looking in its general direction, but I grabbed some steel wool, and with a little water and a lot of scrubbing (is it pathetic that my arms ache today?), slowly uncovered a really lovely piece of forgotten art in this hand-crafted wrought iron display.  Maybe it was just the pride I felt in actually accomplishing something that had nothing to do with work, but once it was clean and dripping with my freshly organized necklaces, I was almost taken aback by its simple - but genuine - beauty.

Reusing, recycling, upcycling, and re-inventing are all terms we hear incessantly in the world of sustainable fashion, and ultimately, the idea of creating new purposes for items otherwise landfill-bound really is at the heart of living a sustainable lifestyle, fashion or otherwise.  I'm actually kind of inspired to participate in these yard sale treasure hunts more often now, even if just to challenge myself to find clever ways to re-purpose unwanted goodies and give them another chance to shine.   

P.S. These stunningly professional quality photos were taken with my BlackBerry, but you get the point.  My only regret: not taking a 'before' picture.  My dreams last night were haunted by rust.

Fabric Trash into Fashion Treasure

This piece by Mountains of the Moon President/Designer Melissa Baswell was originally featured on Green By Design, an amazing blog with an amazing mission: to harness our collective intelligence, creativity, and integrity to help protect the planet.


My beginnings as a designer in my tiny college apartment consisted mainly of reworking gently used thrift store clothing into one-of-a-kind designs, utilizing every possible scrap of excess fabric and spare button to its fullest. While interning at an environmental nonprofit, I gained an awareness of the negative environmental impact that certain aspects of the fashion industry had (mainly pesticide use and water waste in conventional fabrics), but it was difficult to find chic sustainable textiles at the time.

As the eco-fashion movement slowly began to gain momentum and cross genre boundaries, new fabrics became available, and my focus shifted from reworking used clothing into creating full collections from sustainable textiles. It was at this time that I began to work more with patterning and manufacturers, and was introduced to the incredible amount of fabric waste being generated by the fashion industry.

I quickly realized that true sustainable fashion is multi-faceted, and made a vow to always include four important elements in all of my collections:

(1) sustainable fabrics,
(2) timeless designs that would allow my clothing to be worn for years,
(3) sweatshop-free labor, and
(4) as little fabric waste as possible.

So how does a designer find imaginative ways to be less wasteful when it comes to fabric?

1. Be conscious when creating patterns and markers. Design them to utilize the fabric in a way that minimizes wasted space and edges.

2. Be original and reuse scraps within your designs. I love turning fabric scraps into embellishments or detailing on my designs, especially when it transforms a piece from my collection into an instant one-of-a-kind garment.

3. Be creative and reuse scraps for other projects. I create my hangtags from 100% recycled stock designed to be bookmarks (rather than a regular hangtag, which would ultimately be pulled off the garment and tossed), and use leftover fabric to create the bookmark ribbons.

4. Be resourceful and use salvaged fabric from others. Visit a local cut and sew factory and ask if they will sell (or even give) you leftover fabric that would be otherwise dumpster bound.

5. Be aware in your design work of how to transition from season to season without being distracted by fads. Find ways to carry certain fabrics over from collection to collection so the problem of excess fabric becomes a solution (too much slate organic cotton jersey from spring becomes less slate organic cotton jersey needed for fall).


It is reassuring to see many designers finally beginning to incorporate sustainability into their lines, but ultimately, the fashion industry needs a major shift in its thinking in order to help put an end to the destruction of the planet. Hopefully in the near future issues like fabric waste will be a thing of the past, and the eco-fashion label will no longer be a genre, it will be a given.

Chewy Not "Crunchy"

Okay, first I have to confess that I stole that title from our wonderful friends at Boutique Chartreuse in St. Louis, who blogged about my recycled candy wrapper dress and came up with that clever phrase. I simple couldn't come up with anything nearly as catchy on my own, so I just had to use it.

That said, on to the sweet stuff. And I mean that literally.

A few months ago, the Apparel Industries Board of Chicago contacted me about creating a dress from candy wrappers for an event called Sweet Chic. Sweet Chic was to be the the finale to Chicago's Fashion Week, and would entail 14 Chicago Fashion Designers teaming up with 14 Chicago Apparel Designers to create couture designs (made from candy wrappers and boxes). The designs would premier at the Museum of Contemporary Art on October 11th, then be auctioned off with all profits going to the Spina Bifida Association of Illinois. Pretty cool.

I was assigned Charleston Chew. Perhaps now it is all coming together as the title of this blog begins to make sense. You know, eco-fashion tends to be associated with being crunchy or granola and all that. Here at Mountains of the Moon, we set out way back when to break this stereotype. And since I was approached about designing my dress from Charleston Chew wrappers and to create a piece that was wearable yet couture, in the end, my dress was not crunchy at all. It was however, chewy. Not literally (I didn't use actual candy), but it was made up of hundreds of Charleston Chew wrappers (which I am still, weeks later, randomly finding not only in every corner of my studio, but also in places like my bathtub and attached to my dog's paws). My boyfriend and I even made up a Charleston Chew robot dance that was induced by the temporary insanity caused by working with these wrappers into the wee hours of the night (and morning) for several weeks. So this design was, truly, a chewy, not crunchy, eco-masterpiece (that sounds really arrogant to call it a masterpiece, but hey, it sounds good when you read it, so I'm leaving it).

I'll spare you the agonizing details of the composition of the design, but I will say that Charleston Chew wrappers do not like to be made into art. They don't sew without ripping. They resist several types of glue. They stick together in very inconvenient places. But through much experimentation, I was able to make it work in the end. I combined the wrappers with vintage silk into an Audrey Hepburn-inspired dress with a modern twist (the bubble/balloon skirt which was hand-tacked and stuffed with tulle).

It was really a wonderful experience for me (despite the ridiculous amount of time that went into it), because it gave me the opportunity to create an eco-friendly work of wearable art from recycled materials that would have otherwise ended up in some landfill. I am used to working with organic and sustainable fabrics everyday, but this was an entirely new adventure. It really did have quite an effect on me, and now I find myself looking at everyday objects that many would consider trash, and envisioning new ways to turn them into art.

The creations are currently on display at shops along the Magnificent Mile (that is the portion of Michigan Avenue where all of the fancy fashion boutiques and department stores are, for all you non-Chicagoans), and afterward will be listed online for auction. I will be sure to post that link once the website is active.

I now dream of ways to empty my trash bin on the floor of my studio and make recycled art from its contents. Gross or fabulous? Perhaps a little of both, but most definitely just one of the many ways we can all combine creativity with environmentalism, which is a wonderful thing in my book.

xoxo,

melissa