glam.spoon: fashion blog

all that sparkles... would you believe?

In all honesty, I can't believe that something so simple and elegant as a diamond can be the root of such evil. Maybe I'm naive, but this whole conflict never occurred to me. I'm also not the kind of girl who has a lot of diamond jewelry laying around, despite the fact that my birthstone is diamond. I'm more of a collector of recycled metals and semi-precious stones. Do you know where do your diamonds come from?

In 1998, Global Witness released a report that exposed the role of diamonds in funding civil war in Angola.  Five years later, in 2003, United Nations General Assembly Resolution 55/56 introduced the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS), with the aim of preventing ‘conflict diamonds’ from entering the mainstream market.

Throughout the world, the “Kimberley Process Certified” stamp of approval has been seen as a guarantee of a conflict-free past, offering consumers a standard with which to judge the ethical credentials of a diamond prior to purchase. However, in late 2011, Global Witness pulled out of KPCS, branding it “an accomplice to diamond laundering”. One of the key reasons for Global Witness’s departure has been activity around the Marange diamond fields in Zimbabwe over the past few years, where an explosion of diamond production has been accompanied by increased levels of violence and intimidation orchestrated by a corrupt political and military elite . Since this conflict does not involve warring rebel militias, the KPCS considers Zimbabwe diamonds to be conflict-free.

To educate a wider audience on the problems with the Kimberley process, Ingle & Rhode has created an infographic that explains to ethically minded consumers, in an easy to consume format, why simply having a Kimberley Process certified diamond is not enough.

 

(via Ingle & Rhode Ethical Diamonds).

“It is important that consumers are aware that Kimberley certification does not guarantee that a diamond is conflict-free. In order to know whether a diamond has been ethically produced you need to be able to trace it back to it source.” - Tim Ingle, Ingle & Rhode

 

The Rite of Spring

  On Thursday, March 8th, the 14th annual Student Fashion Show will showcase 80 to 100 outfits designed by local fashion design students from The Art Institute of Seattle at the Showbox SODO (1700 1st Avenue South, Seattle). The show will include Ready to Wear trends for Spring and Fall 2012, and is produced by Art Institute students with the help of Executive Producer, Joan Kelly, who returns for her fifth year. There will be two shows on Thursday, the first at 5 p.m. and the second show at 8 p.m.

The Art Institute of Seattle celebrates its fourteenth year showcasing the Northwest's most innovative emerging designers. The production also brings together students from different departments to create this successful event.

Not Another Brick in the Wall

Last Friday I had the pleasure of attending Not Another Brick in the Wall, aka Arbitrary Fashion, a benefit for the Red Cross Foundation at Wine World Warehouse. The event was created, produced and hosted by graduating seniors of The Art Institute of Seattle's Fashion Marketing program.

Wine World is a wonder of a place... so much wine, so little time. They have tastings weekdays at 6pm and a separate event space, with floor to ceiling windows featuring a lovely view of downtown Seattle. 

Before the show I was invited back stage by Randy Evans, hair-guru extraordinaire, to snap some photos of the action. Randy is not only an instrumental part of the Goodwill Glitter Gala, he was also personally invited by Mr. Oribe Canales, celebrity stylist and founder of Oribe Hair Care, to participate in Milan Fashion Week. Randy helped style both the Ready to Wear & Couture runway shows for Giorgio Armani s/s 2011, so he knows a thing or two about taming hair. 

 

The schedule for the evening included a meet-and-greet book signing with Tristan Lindborg, author of Catastrophic[Fashion]Failure. I'm disappointed not to have had the chance to chat with her and find out what the book was all about.

The Fashion Show portion featured young and emerging designers from The Art Institute of Seattle's Fashion Design program. 

The above runway photos were taken by Najah Z Photography

Although the light was a bit low for my photography skillz, I did get a few snapshots with my phone to capture the ambient mood of the event. I was sitting near the entrance to the runway, so inevitably I managed to get a lot of shots with the models looking in some-other-direction than at me... but at least you can see the designs and the hair!

The good news is that between the ticket sales and the silent auction items, the event raised $1,200 for The American Red Cross. 

Cafe Lago's Doposcuola series

What could be more indulgent than spending a whole evening talking about Italian fashion with Seattle Metropolitan Magazine's Style Editor Laura Cassidy, while sipping Prosecco over a plate of house made spaghetti and meatballs? On February 8th, that's exactly what I did. At the finale of a four part series of Italian fashion discussions held at Cafe Lago, Laura presided over the evening's "Shop Like an Italian" Doposcuola (loosely translated as after-hours schooling) and led us fashionably through a winding tour of our own city and its best Italian fashion offerings. 

The presentation illustrated the many ways we can shop Seattle like we're in Italy, enjoying our own city and its visual pleasure.  My favorite quote of the night might have been "The Italians don't make a lot of junk." Seek and ye shall find. 

Emilio Pucci designs

A brief history of fashion reveals that the Italian designers entered the US market in the early 1950's with Emilio Pucci's loud and crazy designs. Then Valentino made a dress for Jackie Kennedy when she married her American Presidential prince, which likely solidified Italian fashion as tres chic. 

Jackie Kennedy wedding dress

Soon after, a little family outfit called Missoni came over in the 1960's bringing with them an impressive talent for innovative knitwear. Fifty years later, they're selling out their discount line through Target. 

Roberta Armani visited The Bravern in 2010 and declared to one reporter that her Uncle (Giorgio) was responsible for bringing drama to America. Thank you, sir! From Ferragamo to Gucci to Marni, the Seattle/Bellevue shopping districts offer an array of fine Italian designer duds just ripe for the taking, no boarding pass needed. 

Gucci Milan 2008

If you're not one to drop a month's rent on an outfit, you can still find high Italian design to fit your budget right here in Seattle. Mark your calendar for March 8th when the Marni for H&M Collection hits Seattle. Check out this write up by Alison Brownrigg on Porttle for her top picks.

Following the success of its first series, Cafe Lago joined forces with Seattle7Writers.org and  Old Renton Book Exchange to schedule a second run entitled "Read Local Doposcuola," presented by local authors, beginning March 7th for 4 consecutive Wednesdays. Books will be available for purchase the night of each class. Bring a friend or show up alone and grab a seat in the middle, like I did. The family-style seating will have you drinking, debating and rubbing elbows with new friends while breaking bread Italian style.

Each class accommodates up to 20 people and is free with dinner. Class participants are asked to arrive at 6:30 p.m, pick a spot and get to know their neighbors over complementary Prosecco and antipasti. Class begins at 7 p.m. and dinner is served during the class. The nights' lessons wrap up around 8:00. To make a reservation, call 206-329-8005.

 

Eternity in a Ruffle: Part 1

Jessica Burstein is Associate Professor in the Department of English and the Department of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington. She is a tiny, striking and brilliant force of nature. At the first session of Seattle Arts & Lectures series, Eternity in a Ruffle: Fashion in Art, Art in Fashion, she blew my mind. 

The week of snow in mid January turned out to be powerful enough to postpone the first session of the lecture series by one week. I almost couldn't stand it. When the day finally arrived, running late as always, I parked on the street and click-clacked down the block toward The Henry. Luckily, Suzy was already there, saving me a seat.

Finally settled in to the back row in the dim theater-style lecture hall, it was time to listen and absorb. What I don't know about the history of fashion is a lot. The vocabulary alone! I recorded the entire lecture so that I can transcribe and re-read it several times in order to really figure understand it. I'm still in the process of transcribing so I'll just hit the highlights.

The first thing I heard was "Fashion is art..." and then "I want to make clear why this topic is important." I was definitely in the right room. Fashion and modernism were the topics of the day and we were about to delve very deeply into the theoretical foundations of something most of us generally take for granted. Not Ms. Burstein, however, as she began, "Let’s start with the basics because I have found that when you’re talking about very sophisticated topics, it is especially important to take nothing for granted."

We quickly defined the term fashion, which exists as both a noun and a verb. "The material on your backs is material history because it marks the clothing as made in a certain place by a certain process involving humans who live in time and history... So material may be the most material form of history that you can lay hands on literally. You touch history when you touch material." Did I tell you? Mind blowing.

And although she pointed out that there is fashion in everything, her talk was to focus on the sartorial. Six minutes into the lecture, we have arrived at our first vocabulary word.

sar·to·ri·al

[sahr-tawr-ee-uhl, -tohr-]  Adjective

1. of or pertaining to tailors or their trade: sartorial workmanship.

2. of or pertaining to clothing or style or manner of dress:sartorial splendor.

The only reason I'm familiar with the term sartorial is because of a certain street style blogger. Style blogging is the most prolific form of fashion blogging, and if you're curious enough to do some exploring I would suggest starting there. The Sartorialist has received a lot of attention for being one of the ground breakers of street style blogging.

Immediately following discussion of the sartorial, we learned that fashion is a word that can be used synecdochically. Whoa. After consulting Websters.com, synecdochically comes from the root, synecdoche: 

syn·ec·do·che

[si-nek-duh-kee]  noun Rhetoric; 

1. a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part, the special for the general or the general for the special.

Her example made it crystal clear: When one uses the term 'plastic' in place of 'credit card.' Ms. Burstein explained, "Asking if the shop accepts plastic is synecdochical because plastic is a constitutive aspect of the invisible credit card." By this reasoning then the word fashion can stand for the thing it represents, which is why we call clothing fashion. This is apparently very important philosophically, because no matter how tangible and tactile clothing is, there is also something ethereal about fashion, which is why a woman with great style is generally said to possess that Je Ne Sais Quoi. This idea brings us to the first suggested reading, which was written by a colleague of Ms. Burstein's, Herbert Blau's Nothing in Itself.

As we wound our way to the second definition of the word fashion, Ms. Burstein suggested, "It’s important to realize that fashion encompasses making... fashioning is the act of making something by humans." Here the word fashion is opened up to a much broader use: fashioning something - anything - doesn't always have to do with clothing.

Tracing the history of fashion follows two currents: the consumption of fashion and its production. This brings us to our second reading list item, Nancy Green's Ready to Wear Ready to Work. This book sounds like America's greatest historical account of the production of fashion in the 1800's. Green's account tracked the flow of immigrant labor, notes the invention of the Singer sewing machine in 1854 which brought efficiency to production with the use of the treadle and the invention of the continuous threading device. That's huge! I've already added the book to my Amazon wish list.

Only about 15 minutes into the lecture, we arrived at the root message of the class. She had promised to tell us why fashion is important. "It's easy. Three words: fashion is art." 

On one level, the study of fashion was born as a breed of art history and that makes it important. Studying dress of different ages lends itself to dating paintings, because trends are historical. I'm sure they were very specific in the 1800's and even half of the 1900's, but I wonder if trends are still distinct enough in this eclectic age of futurism and flashback to be able to date a painting, for instance. Today it seems that the 80's are back in full force, but clothing from the 70's is considered vintage. Does that mean the 60's will soon become ancient history?

On the second level, fashion is art, in and of itself. "Humans are not the only things that adorn themselves and their surroundings, but we are the ones that do it in such a way as to take it beyond the merely biological. Now this is a point of some dispute. I believe that we are not always dressing ourselves simply in order to attract a mate." Humans care about aesthetics, and aesthetics is a branch of philosophy, and although this is very high brow, academic stuff, she was gentle with us. In fact, that bit about not dressing to attract a mate is one of my favorite Burstein-ism from the evening. 

Then we turned to the subject of pure beauty.

"Pretty is as pretty does but something pretty can be pretty boring. Now beauty should here be understood in a very capacious way."

ca·pa·cious

[kuh-pey-shuhs]  Adjective

1. capable of holding much; spacious or roomy: a capacious storage bin.

Ms. Burstein at this point told a humorous anecdote of a peach colored dress she wore when she was ten at her dad's wedding to her step mother, with absolutely no affection for that pretty dress. I pictured her something like this, only sullen.

via Posh Baby Boutique Store

Fashion is art, art is fashion because it possesses aesthetics and exists as part of our art history. This lecture has more ammunition to prove that theory than I've ever heard in one sitting, from ancient cave paintings to sumptuary laws to the birth of modernity; clearly someone throughout history has been writing this stuff down, and Ms. Burstein has read it all.

It is generally accepted that western modernity began in the late 1600's with Rene Descartes, but artistic modernism, it is believed, started in the 1800's with the industrial revolution. Although the lecture was just getting cooking when this period rolled around and my high school education began to kick in, I'm going to end my first installment here and take a breather.

Stay tuned!