Sassy Smolak

 

The blogging world is really a WORLD, I could have never expected that one click would take me to another blog and another and another.....

One of those happy coincidences is Sassy Smolak, the whimsical life and colourful expression of Emily Smolak.  Her writing is exciting, engaging and makes you want to come back for more.  So much so that Emily is offering a pair of very cute bird earrings from Faded Willow in the *GiveAway*

I am currently reading Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre" and came across the following passage whilst in the tube:

"I see at intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close-set bars of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there: were it but free, it would soar cloud high."

Alice and her Wonderland

                                          'A Desolate but Beautiful Life' by Alice Rebbeca Potter
                                                                                    (mixed media illustration, March 2010)


Alice is one of my very good friends from Uni, and I have made a post especially for her because she has really inspired me to get a move on my own project.  She doesn't know that, although she will now.


Alice is a textile designer/ maker and illustrator.  She gathers inspiration from rural and urban landscapes, she has a particular love for forests and mountains, her works comes together in drawings and collages.  Her fresh and witty approach make every piece delightful.
When looking at her portfolio I really get a sense of a this land she has constructed, it is child-like but there is something quite 'desolate' about her work.  It's nostalgic and it's honest.


She currently sells some of her pieces at ENVELOP and be sure to check out her ETSY shop were she sells greeting cards handmade by her mum. (how sweet is that!?)

Fashioning an Ethical Industry: Fast Forward 2010 Conference (Part II)

The other big thing about the conference was the networking opportunities it presented.  I have to admit I felt very comfortable in that world and all the people I spoke with all had very valuable insights for Lunamano.


Ever since the conference I became a Social Alterations' junkie.   Social Alterations is the place I go to further my education and knowledge within the ethical world.  Social Alterations aims to bridge the gap between theory and practice within existing perceptions of socially responsible fashion design education to create lasting change through transformative fashion design education.
I met with founder Mary Hanlon for a long chat later that week and it was a back and forth bounce of ideas between her project, mine and everything in between.  Mary asks the question "So, if corporations, business and business apparel educators have a role to play in transforming the social and environmental challenges facing the fashion industry, what is the role of the fashion design educator? "


It is definitely a big question and Social Alterations forms a big part of the answer.


Overall, between the conference, the people I met and the presentations I heard, the two things that resonated the most for me were, education and issues of scale: how big is enough?


I agree on the importance of educating current design students (not only in fashion but all areas of design) I would also add to that the importance of teaching future generations about social and environmental practices but at a much younger level, to be more specific, 1-6 yrs, the most important learning stage for any human being.


Finally, I would have been interested in a discussion (within the conference to begin with) on the role of the big fashion houses and organisations like the LVMH group (Louis Vuitton, Dior, Pucci, etc) in setting certain industry standards, for instance, the 4-6 collections they produce every year.  A sort of "lead by example" approach.  What would happen if they decided to have 2 collections instead? How would the high street react?


Last but not least, Social Alterations talks 'responsible design' with some very inspiring people, and one very inspired designer...(yours truly)


David Goldsmith from The Swedish School of Textiles and Parsons


Eleanor Dorrien-Smith from PARTIMI


Kat Ross and Larissa Clark from the Environmental Justice Foundation


Carolina Gomez-Aubert from Lunamano


Sophie Koers from the Fair Wear Foundation

Responsible Design: Why should design students care? from Social Alterations on Vimeo.

Fashioning an Ethical Industry: Fast Forward 2010 Conference (Part I)

Fashion both reflects and influences social change. In a time when we are increasingly concerned with the impact of the industry on people and the planet, students need to be equipped with the tools to design the way we make and consume fashion differently. Fashioning an Ethical Industry (an EU funded project taking place in the UK, Netherlands, Austria and Poland) is part of a growing global movement within fashion education that is addressing how the business of fashion impacts on garment workers. This two day international conference built upon the success of previous national events and the publication of the Sustainable Fashion: A Handbook for Educators. 

It brought together educators, industry experts, academics and selected students to explore how fashion can be taught to inspire responsibility for the rights of the workers making our clothes.

On the 2nd & 3rd of March I had the amazing and nerve racking experience of presenting a Pecha-Kucha style presentation (I know double wording there): "Can El Salvador Sustain and Develop Home-grown Design?", with 20 images played for 20 seconds each I spoke surprisingly eloquently about my thesis and Lunamano.

This is when speaking about Lunamano begun to be external, that is, out of my head and notebooks onto people.  The responses were great and encouraging, like-minded people came over to our stand in the market place day to speak about how and what the materials were, what was the next step? How this project begun? and how they could help.  After such a response the product design phase has officially begun and soon I'll be after collaborations with fellow designers, to utilize the materials Lunamano has made and turn them into products.

Other highlights of the event included key note speakers Otto von Busch and Kate Fletcher, both of them truly inspiring.  Otto's work explores how fashion can be re-engineered by consumers for a more self-empowered, bottoms-up approach, in his presentation juxtaposing the rituals of religion against the rituals of fashion.  He was cut short due to timing issues but the audience was 100% engaged, "no!, don't stop" we all cheered.  

As for Kate Fletcher's Local Wisdom it made me think about scale, and how big is enough?  This project celebrates the abundance of experience, ingenuity and freethinking that comes from local people and their relationships with their own garments, for instance, we heard the story of two sisters who have shared a dress between them for over 30 years.  This is the kind of sustainability we don't hear about in the industry or in the catwalk shows.

It is stories like this that inspire Lunamano. Micro.

And so it begins...

                                Constructed Cherries  Series 4
                                           Wallpaper, made from waste foam, cut, dyed, embossed and pressed


It has been six years since I came to London from El Salvador and a lot has happened, namely; student-flat, gin-tonics, flatmates, friends, boyfriends, ex-boyfriends, textile design degree, first job, second job, first real job (the fun fed), husband, beautiful baby girl and Lunamano.

This blog refers to the latter and everything that feeds into it. Lunamano was born from my graduate dissertation. Research that really brought me closer to what the real deal is when it comes to worker's rights in the garment industry in El Salvador.

Learning that 75% of factories have closed down in the past decade as American owners moved to countries like India and China for cheaper labour and faster production was shocking. Learning that this left 50,000 unemployed Salvadorians was numbing. I feel a rush of blood even writing about it, and after 2 years and 6 months of intense field and academic research I decided to do something about it.

Hi, my name is Carolina and I am an idealist.