Leather

After the little side-track about sub-cultures Part one and two, I cannot bypass leather and leather products (a little overdue). Doing a plain google search yielded a few results concerning leather trade fairs in South Africa, although they do include other things as well. Also, you can get links from shoes and related accessories, to biker clothes, to lingerie (hmmmm sub-cultures again)

Did you know that the first garments in the Bible were made from animal skin?  Seriously - after the fig leaves, God provides Adam and Eve with skins as clothes (for protection and warmth I' assuming). Unfortunately for the poor animals...

Now tanning the leather is quite the smelly process - always was and always will be I suppose - since the hides arrive stiff and (usually) salted at the tannery, where they are soaked to remove the preservative and then scoured and pounded to remove any excess flesh and fat. At this point also the skin would be scraped clean of any hair. In ancient times, the skins would then be soaked in urine or painted with alkaline lime and then putrefied in a salt solution for several months. Oh yukky! After this process, they would be pounded with dung - just read the rest for yourself on Wikipedia.  I think that tanneries today have not lost much of the stink. I have lived down the road from one for five years, and can vouch for the fact that when the wind came from the wrong direction you rather fled the house....

Now thinking of tanning and leather products, one can argue the fact that poor animals are used from awful conditions to give us mink coats and other fur, where PETA will lead the way for animal rights. The main objections are about the fur trade, since environmental matters as well as slaughtering practices gave rise to outcries. My honest opinion is that humans were meant to rule over the animals, but not exploit them, so I'm torn between support for PETA and very much for fur and leather. I think there are ethical issues that we need to consider, but I'm not going to discuss them here. Having grown up in an environment where you would hunt for meat and use almost every single bit of flesh (and hide) for usage, I can understand that people would be up in arms if animals are bred to provide fur and kept in cages that are way too small.

I suppose there is a difference between fur and hide (leather), but when considering the wear one can get out of real leather shoes or the horrible PVC stuff, I'd rather wear something for a long time and get what my money is worth, rather than paying less, but having to replace things in a much shorter period of time. With fur it is slightly different, because no matter how the fur was treated, eventually the hair will fall off.

What I'm rally trying to say is that all things can be used in moderation.

Style

Ok, So I have a fashion crisis.... I see these beautiful things in the shop, try them on, and this is the result: (Please excuse the lighting, it's taken in the change rooms that have diffused light, for whatever reason). Jeans are mine, I tried on just the tops/dress.

So, in essence, I'm not a super model and I don't think I want to be, but style is important. You does have to wear things according to what suits you and your body type. In the first picture, there are several reasons why the outfit doesn't work, one being, that the jeans are too flared at the bottom, distracting from the shape of the dress. I think it would have worked better with tights, but then again, am I willing to wear them? It's also about modesty now, isn't it?

The second outfit works better, because the waist is accentuated and not flared.

This brings me to how critical we look at ourselves. How do we view our bodies and compare them to what we see in magazines. Sometimes our self-image changes from day to day. This day may have been not a great day for me and looking at pictures now makes me realise that both outfits don't look that bad actually. Just changing a mindset makes all the difference in the world. Isn't this exactly what the Bible teaches by taking every thought captive.....?

Branding

Developing a following in the fashion industry depends on the image that the brand portrays. This means that the brand name will evoke a certain image in the person's mind and thus, if they can and want to identify with it, they will usually support the brand. If they have been part of the brand since the beginning and then the brand re-invents itself, they still have the choice to continue following, or to switch. Usually switching comes at a cost tot he consumer, because they will now need to find another brand that will stand for what they themselves believe and stand for.

Is this not the same as worshiping? Even the experts agree in an article I read from the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, (Fashion retailing and the bottom line by Robin Pentecost and Lynda Andrews) - yes, read that first surname again ;) The following was mentioned from research conducted by Redden and Steiner(2000) - reference to follow below:

Redden and Steiner (2000) [... suggest] that fanatical behaviour retains aspects of normal behaviour, based on the degree of enthusiasm, excietment, passion and commitment and /or extremes to which an individual is prepared to go to consume an identified product or service. Researching branding, they suggest behaviours such as loyalty or worshiping potentially denote a fanatical consumer. thus, higher degrees of fanship can relate to higher degrees of consumption. We argue that fans portray distinctive behaivour that means they are not necessarily fashion leaders but very enthusiastic fashion followers.

(Redden and Steiner published in Journal of Consumer Marketing Volume 17 issue 4 pages 322-337: Fanatical Consumers: towards a framework for research.)

So, what does that mean for the general Christian? Can we still be fashionable or do we need to walk around like our grannies? What do we make of the consumerism and branding of shops we like and go to? Where do we draw the line? If their advertising starts offending us, or if we cannot wear anything in the store? I think we really need to think about this more, especially when we look at advertisements.

I think this post will link up nicely with another one I have planned for future, discussing modesty.

Green

I have heard or read once that green has more shades than any other colour - just look at the colours when you try to change the colours in a program

Usually associated with hope and growth, but also with death, jealousy, sickness and envy. Nature is most likely to come to mind when thinking about green, though.

Just look at those shades....

Now we can get lost in nature - all of God's creation.

From the history of fashion we can learn a few things:
1) during the middle ages, right up to about the turn of the 20th century, fashion took forever to change -sometimes decades went by with only minor changes in dress.
2) Fashion was determined by the upper class - mainly royalty
3) Exclusive fabrics were only available to royalty - as in the Napoleonic era, where the French silk production was not allowed to be used for anyone else but the emperor and everything, from curtains to upholstery to fashion was done in silk. This also meant that the French silk industry flourished, but faltered thereafter, since it could not be sustained.

If we dig a little deeper, we can very quickly get to environmental issues and protection. This of course links up with environmental fashion or sustainable fashion. Unfortunately no-one really knows how to define sustainable fashion, since fashion is not really sustainable in any way, because of planned obsolescence. This means that every six months, if not more, fashion changes. This is either because we demand the change (instant gratification), or because we have become used to the changes that anything that lingers in the shops will be old fashioned. Now if you have linked to the article, you will notice that there is much work to be done, and though words like "green" and "Eco-friendly" and "Organic" pop up, what will that mean for the normal guy on the street?

I cannot answer those questions either and I suppose they turn into ethical issues as well - how much do we need to take care of our planet? Are we not supposed to be its steward? When it comes to fashion, how much are we destroying the planet in the process, with all the dyes and processes that a piece of fabric goes through? If we continue like this, where is it going to stop?

Hair

If any of you have by accident seen the musical Hair, this post has nothing to do with it.

Fashion in hair has become a major part of fashion shows. Trends in new cuts and colours have given rise to many magazines being published. I think celebrities have set some of the trends, like Lady Diana (back in the 80's)

More recent trends were set by Victoria Beckham (OK, it's the first one that came to mind)

For a few more ideas...

If I look at a biblical perspective of hair, there are several passages that have often been taken at face value, not taking into consideration the cultural background they were written in. For example.... 1 Corinthians 11:6, 14 and 15, 1 Timothy 2:9 and 1 Peter 3:3. The references are about women mainly, and that hair is their crowning glory, except when she prays, then her head needs to be covered - according to the passage in Corinthians. Unfortunately / fortunately times have changed and we do not live under law, but under grace. I think verse 13 gives a good indication : Judge for yourselves: Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? If we can judge for ourselves, then surely there is a place for the change of tradition and culture. For men, the rule is to let their hair be groomed - according to passages in Leviticus as well as uncovered when praying.

If our beauty is wrapped up in our hair, then 1 Peter 3 gives a great warning: be careful that your outward beauty does not consume you, but let your inner beauty shine.

Orange

This is more difficult than I thought. There are no matches for the word "Orange" in the Bible. But I think that there are some implied references just by the amount of sunsets and sunrises that are mentioned.

 

Also, one can link it up to "fire" of which there are a number of references. (437 in fact) 

Another aspect, I suppose is the fact that it refers to a fruit. Unfortunately, the orange is also linked with orange peel, which links it up with beauty and plastic surgery on a completely different level of interpretation.

Coming to orange fashion, it seems that orange is quite the colour this summer - although these trends will hit South Africa only next time around i.e. at the end of the year. Still, I think it is a very versatile colour and will suit most people's skin. 

Speaking of skin colour: the colouring of skin is divided according to seasons - so Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. Each has their respective colour scheme that goes best with hair, skin and eyes. So, for Autumn (which I am), this is the basic palette: Taken from this website.

There are some greys and darker browns that will work just as well. If you want to have your own analysis done, go the website above and try it out.

After all that linking you had to do, let me summarise. Orange, like all the colours of the rainbow enriches our lives in that provides for more shades to be produced. It is part of God's creation and without it the world would be rather dull. Who can imagine a sunrise/sunset without it?

The life of a Fashion Designer

If you ever thought that the life of a fashion designer was glamorous, think again....
 While I'm doing this (fitting)

 and this: (finishing off hem and zip)

 This definitely does NOT get done:

I did not take a picture of all the threads on the floor, that might just be overkill, but you get the idea.