not having a wardrobe!

I really liked a girl called Jessi Arrington when i heard her talking on TED yesterday. First of all she reminds me of a friend of mine called Pi, who is as poetic and cheerful as she is. Second, she is giving a message of sustainability and aware consume.

Thrift shops, second hand shops are a great source to discover treasures and someone feels like a treasure hunter once you find a lovely dress that you will wear for less than 2.50 GBP.

The other message is non attachment, possessing something for a short time and then letting go without fear is something to take into consideration.

This girl Jessi is at the same time delightful and inspiring. And I like her.

http://www.ted.com/talks/jessi_arrington_wearing_nothing_new.html?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2011-06-07&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email

a further way to recycling: freeganism. Findin perfectly edible products thrown away by supermarkets

That's it with snobish ways to eating sustainibly! Finished.

No more vegetarians, vegans or organic people, my new personal heroes of food awareness are the freegetarians.

Being freegetarians basically means belonging to a movement of people that forage through store's bins at night (or early morning) and many times are lucky enough to end up with a free (delicious) lunch.

To this movement belongs the most different range of people ever: from elder people that struggle with benefits, to students, to convinced environmentalists that sustain food recycling and try to make a point against big chains and supermarket disposing food that has not really expired.

a few facts are:

• Europe and the U.s. have as double as food they need
• in the Uk, 25% of bought food gets wasted (results: 20 million tons of waste a year)
• 80% of Uk population are not clear about the difference between "best-before", "use-by" and "display until"
• sadly enough, there are 1 billion malnourished people in the world: the 40 million tons of food wasted in the Us would be enough to feed them.

mumble, mumble,

time to start thinking.

courtesy of Metro, wed, 4th, 2011.

yammi. Love this.

I went to ericson beamon super-biutiful shop http://www.ericksonbeamon.com/ and fell in love with Shourouk http://www.shourouk.fr/.

I only want to do things like these. Fluo, rosa, pietre, vintage stones, yammi.

I like transformation, that's what I like. I am being serious.

I had forgotten how much of a circus the fashion world might be ;-). I entered the yard at Somerset House yesterday, one of the last days of the London Fashion week, and I remembered. It looked like a circus, a show, a carnival, a masquerade.

Fashion is as fascinating and absurd as it might be: many looked disguised rather than dressed and everyone seemed extremely serious. That is the thing that strikes you the most: how fashion people take themselves seriously. It is the game of belonging and yet wanting to be unique. So everyone is secretly happy to be "part" of it all, yet they want to be different, special.

I don’t know how (maybe because I was starting to act very seriously as well and, thus, at the entrance, no one dared to ask me for accreditation) I sneaked in the exhibition at Embankement Level. I was mainly interested to have a

look at Esthetica, where sustainable and ethical designers are presenting their work.

http://www.britishfashioncouncil.com/estethica

Stands at Estethica were looking somehow too crafty compared to the other non-environmental stalls, yet some interesting concepts were shown (according to my serious :-) opinion):

I saw De Castro, owner of From Somewhere, (http://www.fromsomewhere.co.uk/) presenting her collection, including revamped Speedo-swimsuits dresses.

She looked a little stressed as I heard her chasing a model “they want to see the whole collection, they are one of the best shops in the world, get dressed, pull your hair up, be beautiful, come on… (there is no such thing as relaxed fashion: business is business worldwide J ). The Speedo collection is soo interesting, the rest of the collection is a little pasticciata (now, how do I translate this word??? Messy, it is definitely messy)

Henrietta Ludgate collection looked very appealing: it looked luxurious and cool. It was my favourite http://www.henriettaludgate.com

Sustainable fashion does not have to mean hippy, folk or crafty. It can also be edgy, and she seemed to be. No wonder she won the Fashion Week Innovation Award. No wonder so-much-quoted-in-these-days Livia Firth wore LH recently for one of her many catwalks with husband Colin.

I really liked the transformation she has created for those normally dodgy quilted Husky coats.

Transformation: that’s what I like.

Shabitat Blanca

Brighton is one of the most flamboyant, up&down-cycled towns in England; Blanca and I love it!
It is only sufficient to have a walk around to have many inspirations!
People don't seem to follow main stream fashion, rather everyone expresses creativity and original ideas.
We saw Shabitat from a distance and could not help go and give an eye. Old furniture, clothes, impossible objects and a "for free" section. A little flea market, but very trash-chic.

Sustainable Blanca!

Blanca at Shabitat!

I am not riding on a Greenpeace dinghy

Some years ago, an american lad started  a challenge with himself called the “one hundred thing challenge” (http://guynameddave.com/100-thing-challenge/). Since then he has decided to live only with indispensable items and to get rid of all the clutter someone is normally surrended by. This is an example of a personal call to sustainability.

Sustainability starts with the “a-little-less-of” philosophy.

Change starts from us: many little "us" together form a moltitude, therefore if a moltitude starts consuming less, this means that a moltitude of less stuff  is being used.

If we watch www.thestoryofstuff.com we are softly, but incisively, reminded that sustainability won’t be a choice soon, but rather a need. Unfortunately if we keep on being so eager as consumers, soon we will be overwhelmed by wastes and deprived of resources.

“A-little-less-of “ philosophy means tiny acts of awareness that we can start to adopt as habits: a little less of toilet paper when we go to the loo, a little less of bottled water (tab water in our lucky western countries is absolutely fine), a little less of driving our cars, a little less of electrical apparels switched on at home.

It also means a little less of buying, a little less of shopping.

But, I started thinking, what can I say about the subject? What is the contribution I can bring?

Let’s face reality: I am not a fierce environmentalist. Also, it is not feasible for me at the moment to ride on a Greenpeace dinghy and stop whales hunting or rain forest destruction.

My little act of awareness can start from re-cycling, o better up-cycling, some clothing items.

Many designers have started with much bigger projects than mine (http://www.sustainable-fashion.com/), and that is just inspiring.

I have thought that using objects that have already had a life (maybe in my wardrobe or on the shelves of a charity shop, or at a flea market) and give them a new reincarnated life, could be a little, sweet exercise of sustainability.

Friends are also a source of sustainability, therefore I sell the tiny s.b.hiro remade collections in a delicious “second-hand concept store” called Give & Take (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Give-and-Take/125846177429196) in Milan, owned by two friends: Laura & Poppi.


yes! Hiro