Guess who has a new column up at Elle.com! Here's an excerpt:
"My love for clothing started very young, and not at all in the way you're probably imagining. You see, I had a mother who was constantly sewing together a mixture of hand-me-downs and scrap fabric to make new clothes. She was also clever enough to make it a game of sorts so that I took an immediate interest in the process and remained invested. Mom never let on that being a single parent didn't afford her the luxury of back-to-school shopping sprees. I never felt I was missing out on buying new outfits at the mall, because I didn't yet know that adding in a strip of leopard print velvet down the sides of my older brother's skater pants, in an attempt to feminize them, wasn't other kids' "normal."
To me, this was just the way it was done. It was also creative and exciting to play designer. Mom made these endeavors feel like a choice—we were choosing to cut up old T-shirts to make our own custom designs. Mom used specific language like "one of a kind" and "customized," so I always felt a sense of ownership and pride when kids asked me where I got my clothes. I distinctly remember her taking me to the bead store for yet another project we would work on together. This one involved capri pants, which, in my family, was another way of saying "jeans that had gotten too short."
...Reusing, repurposing, and upcycling clothing is the future, and yet we were doing it then simply because that was our only option. So how can we get people to do that very thing, before it becomes our only actual option? Now is the time to allow our ingenuity to be born of necessity. Once we've sucked the planet dry of any and every resource available while we satisfy our need for "more, more, more," we won't be afforded the luxuries we mindlessly enjoy today. This is why I'm turning to you. Maybe we can all take a few seconds to think about what we have, what we want, and then somehow merge the two. Perhaps that pair of jeans that seems too small just needs a little bit of leopard print sewn down the sides, those old dish rags you're ready to throw away are calling for a second life as an outdoor dog bed, or that T-shirt you outgrew is begging to be cut up into headbands. Be creative, get inspired. Then send me some of your creations, and I'll send you some of mine."
Read the full column at Elle.com
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