Not Just Old Clothes
January 13, 2010 | by Leah | Comment
By the end of the Second World War, the mass-production of clothing had been honed into almost the same machine it is today. Over the next 20 years, fashions in stores became more and more alike and people began turning to thrift stores and yard sales to find what they really wanted. The first vintage clothing stores opened in the 1970s. From then on, used clothing has become completely commodified, blurring the line between a garment that is “authentic vintage” and one that is just plain used.
Today’s vintage market perfectly juxtaposes old clothing with modern commercialism. That vintage sweater from Screaming Mimi’s or Nasty Gal wasn’t always cleaned and styled and packaged up so nicely for you. It didn’t carry a $100 price tag either. No; after its first life in the 80s or 90s, it was pulled, crumpled and damp, from a bail of clothing in a rag house, worth only pennies.
A rag house is a used clothing retailer: unsold thrift stock is compacted into bails and shipped into their warehouse. They can receive bails of apparel, shoes, belts, bags, fabric remnants, etc.
The warehouse of EMR, or Environmental Material Recovery, in Los Angeles Read more
Harriet the Spy Made Me Do It
December 5, 2009 | by Leah | 1 Comment
I grew up in a very conservative area of Southern California, rife with five-bedroom track homes and their three-car garages, sod lawns, and complex irrigation systems. I’m from the old part of town where we don’t have swimming pools, and growing up with a dirt backyard and a mother who paints things bright colors and hangs other things from trees always made me feel different. The bad kind of different. I really wished my parents drove an SUV, voted Republican, and ate bacon.
In 1996 Harriet the Spy came out. Our heroine, ten-year-old Harriet, is ridiculed by her rich classmates, but it’s no matter– she gets to hang out in a magical garden of junkyard art where soda bottles hang from trees! From then on I’ve always pretended that I’m Harriet.
Now that I’m older and don’t live in California anymore, I can really see layers of importance in what used to embarrass me as a child. Once, years ago I flew into the small airport in Carlsbad, CA and it was really scary what I saw while landing– there’s the ocean, then the neighborhood I lived in followed by a maze of developed homes, and beyond that, yellow, leveled-out land dotted with bulldozers. Not only is this horrible for the environment, they’re building more mazes of uniformity as far east as people are willing to live. There are so many ways to change your landscape for the better, all while making you look really ‘hip’ and ‘progressive.’ ;)
My California home uses Xeriscaping, or landscaping with native plants that conserve water, require less maintenance, and are all-around better for the environment. There is an array of trees (orange, lemon, plum, kumquat, and avocado) that over the years have grown to be quite fruitful. Also, weird outdoor art installations to brighten up the dirt lot. Here are some visuals.
Plum tree and Tibeten prayer flags, taken with a Holga. So many alternative things going on here. I pretty much live off of the plums during the summer, there are hundreds of them.
Jade! I drew this in the backyard. Jade is a succulent, it requires little water, and it will look really cool decorating your room, especially if you plant it in a recycled soup can (but don’t put that sticker on it, that’s kind of lame).
Loquat tree (not to be confused with kumquat) with paint and bottles and things you can’t really see and more Tibetan prayer flags coming off of it.
That’s all for now
xx
Leah