Redressed

 Have you heard of the NGO 'redress'?  No?  Well read this and get into it... because it's sweet.  An organization that promotes environmental sustainability in Asia's fashion industry, world's capital of textile waste.  In 2011, Hong Kong alone dumped 217 tonnes of textiles into landfills - a day.

As a brilliant experiment and awareness raising challenge, the founder of redress, Christina Dean, is wearing 100% dumped or donated clothes for 365 days.  The only exceptions are shoes and undies... a wise choice!  It's not a terribly novel concept for those of us who love secondhand fashion - but her extensive styling team provide tricks for high-end-fashionista's to prolong the life of old trends.

You can keep track of her daily outfits here.

 

  

Friday shoe daydreams

It's been such a busy week, which leaves me a little spacey and looking for any form of procrastination on a Friday.  This often leads to looking through online shops, not to buy anything in particular, just to mindlessly flip through beautiful items of clothing.  I stumbled upon this shop: Chiemi Hara

Not only are these shoes incredible but as an added bonus Chiemi Hara, a very cool sounding chick from Spain, is dedicated to perfection - from comfort of the shoe, to sourcing high quality locally manufactured materials.

If I had 400 dollars to spend on shoes, you would have my money Chiemi.

A Very Long Engagement

So, my boyfriend went away this week.  Absent boyfriend usually means time to watch as many girly movies as possible: musicals, rom coms, historical dramas, or anything with french subtitles are on the menu.  A Very Long Engagement, a french historical drama starring Audrey Tautou (of Amélie) meets two of the criteria, and doesn't disappoint!  It's set in WWII and tells the story of a young girl Mathilde (Tautou) searching for her fiance who is deemed 'dead' after last being seen in no man's land in the french trenches.  There are so many layers to this story - including an appearance by Marion Cotillard as a sassy french hooker.

The movie is visually stunning, set for the most part in a french seaside town (Mathilde's fiance is a lighthouse keepers son), and features a brilliant but subtle love story that will likely leave you shedding a tear or two.

More on pumpkins

Turns out I'm not the only one who likes to pose with pumpkins!

 Adore-vintage

 Itsnotheritsme

Sally Jane vintage

Selective potential

Pumpkin soup, pumpkin dress

It's winter here, which means one of the only vegetables in our diet down on this island in the southern hemisphere is pumpkin! Pumpkin bread, pumpkin seeds, roasted pumpkin, pumpkin soup, pumpkin pumpkin...

Turns out, pumpkin is an amazing fruit - packed with vitamin A - so basically I'll be seeing in the dark in no time.  Turns out pumpkin is also an amazing color - for vintage dresses!  It's cold and rainy outside, we're getting cabin fever, so why not make pumpkin seeds and soup in a pumpkin dress?

Pumpkin soup recipe:

Olive oil

1 onion

3 cloves garlic
1 tbsp grated ginger
2 tsp cumin
2 tsp coriander
0.5 tsp cinnamon
0.5 chili powder
Coconut milk
Water
2 lbs pumpkin - roasted and peeled
1 can chickpeas
S&P

Chop/fry the onions in oil (~5 tbsp) combine all the spices and cook for about 10 mins until the onion is browned. Pour in the coconut milk and water and cover the pumpkin and chick peas. Bring to boil then simmer for about 20 mins. Let the mix cool, spin 'er up in the food processor, then eat and prance around in matching dress.  Recipe adapted from here and here.

I need feminism because....

I was thrilled to find a wee group of people here in Dunedin taking it upon themselves to bring the 'I need feminism project' to our farmers market this morning!  The project, a collection of photographs of people around the world using a whiteboard to state 'why they need feminism', is an excellent idea.  Hearing what women's equality means to people is extremely moving.  Check it out here.  Here's a few of my favourites, with a friend and yours truly at the very bottom.

Joni Mitchell and homesickness

For those of us living a long way from home, sometimes the smallest thing - a song, a picture, the sound of a familiar voice - can bring in a flood of homesickness.

For me, it was a brilliant CBC article this morning "A Song Map of Canada", where a route across Canada is mapped using songs that pay tribute to a particular place along the way.  The map opens with Joni Mitchell's "A case of you": "On the back of a cartoon coaster, in the blue TV screen light, I drew a map of Canada".  Joni, you make my heart ache for home.

  

New year, new post

I can't believe how long it's been since I've written, visited, or thought about this page.  These past 8 months have been absolute madness, between field work, data analysis, and a PhD thesis deadline quickly approaching.  I spent the end of last year on a series of uninhabited islands mapping seabird colonies then came home and analyzed a whack of data before heading to a conference in Portland (which was amazing!).  Well, instead of apologizing for the next year while I write up manically, I will just post things here that make late nights in the office that much more enjoyable. 

So, here's to online escapism!

This tumblr by National Geographic has been an absolute godsend!  Each day a few photos from their archives are displayed, many of which have never even been published.  Such a treat to troll through glimpses of what life was like over 60 years ago, from fashion to political issues... even to wildlife (see the photo of a young lady holding mountain lion cubs in what is now urban Montana!).

Here are a few of my favorites: