We all have the capacity - and often the desire - to deny truths that show us engaged in things we know aren’t ideal. To minimise, avoid, distract and rationalise our way to feeling OK with our choices and our behaviour.
And it makes sense. It’s human to avoid the hard stuff, especially when that hard stuff involves us changing behaviours we enjoy. I do it. Regularly. And I’ve been doing it regularly in my making, for many years, in many ways.
“Our romantic lives are fated to be sad and incomplete, because we are creatures drive by two essential desires which point powerfully in entirely opposing directions. Yet what is worse is our utopian refusal to countenance the divergence, our naive hope that a cost-free synchronisation might somehow be found: that the libertine might live for adventure while avoiding loneliness and chaos. Or that the married romantic might unite sex with tenderness, and passion with routine. ”
This beautiful quote (that some people find incredibly depressing :) ) is from one of my favourite books The Course of Love by Alain De Botton. And while the book is about relationships, I believe that this quote speaks to something that is more universal. A state of being if you will, that we humans love to roll around in which Alain highlights as our “utopian refusal to countenance the divergence, our naive hope that a cost-free synchronisation might somehow be found”.
That what we value and how we behave are often two different things.
My feeling is that some of us find this quote depressing because of “our naive hope that a cost-free synchronisation might somehow be found”. That we are hoping that there might be a way to have what we value without a cost. But that isn’t how things work.
We hope that we can somehow buy all the yarn/fabric while also feeling like we are in alignment with our environmental values? Our rationalisation is that we have purchased a “local yarn” or an “organic one” or even that because it is handmade then it is ethical?
That if we have made “from stash” that our project is essentially “cost-free” to the environment and our wallets?
Or simply that we can make “all the things” while also still feeling like we aren’t engaged in fast fashion because somehow the act of us making things by with our own two hands transforms our making into something more ethical - even though we too are over-producing and over-consuming.
“The term fast fashion refers to a large sector of the fashion industry whose business model relies on cheap and speedy production of low quality clothing, which gets pumped quickly through stores in order to meet the latest and newest trends.”
This was the #1 search and I can easily edit it such that we can see our making is part of the problem….
“The term fast fashion refers to ….speedy production of ….clothing, ….. in order to meet the latest and newest trends.”
I do this. I produce things in a speedy way in order to meet the latest and newest trends.
My beautiful red shirt is a case in point. Produced using a fabric that is a colour that is not found in nature. My justification is that it was a remnant and that it is certified with some environmental standard such that it could be seen as “ethical”. And yet it came from across the sea whereby by the time it arrived in Australia it had already been to at least three countries.
And the pattern is something that probably won’t be fashionable in three years time as we shift from huge sleeves to some other trend. And although I try to make my making to some degree trend-independent, some of it slips in because we are human and we are attracted to sparkly new novelty. And being a maker I know that there is an answer for this shirt in that the sleeves could be easily removed, recut and reattached such that the shirt has longevity. But does this “solve it”? Yeah, no. Not exactly.
There is a tension here and it is a tension that I try to ponder rather than solve.
Tension because look at the happy face. But the happiness is tempered every time I wear it by the tension! Because values matter to me. And that is OK.
I think that often we are looking for an easy way out of where we are at in this moment. That we are actively hoping, wishing and desiring that a “cost-free synchronisation may be found”. That we want to live through our desires rather than our values.
AND that our making culture is organised around it. That there is massive slow-fashion-washing (like green-washing) going on. That we have words and concepts like local, ethical, small-business-support, indie, handmade, slow, therapy, that we are using to enable us to make more than we need.
More than is good for us and the world?
And that I am engaged in it.
I want to be able to make and make. With the latest pattern and the loveliest fabric - case in point my beautiful red shirt. A shirt I made, that has brought me so much joy and already so many wears. Which again are just justifications?
I don’t know. What is justifying, minimising and looking for a “cost-free synchronisation”? And what is ethical?
Is our making - an act we have labelled as slow fashion - actually fast fashion due to the speed at which we are making things, the materials we are using or the over-making we are doing?
Are the beautiful curated squares of our making culture promoting the making of more. And more. And more? Of keeping up. Of being “on trend”. Of wanting to be part of community by participating in making the newest and sparkliest pattern/materials?
And in doing so, is it our making simply a modified version of fast fashion?
There isn’t a cost-free answer. We know that so much of what we are doing isn’t aligned with our values. And that doing anything that goes against our values doesn’t sit well with us. Even if we bury our discomfort under piles of excuses and rationalisations.
As always with complex, tricky questions, there is no one answer. Instead I try to sit in the knowledge there is no one answer in my own making. And that for every one of us, the answer to this question is personal and individual and time-dependent and situational.
Often when I speak about “making less” someone will point out that for some people making is essential to their mental health. And that is of course true and important. It is true for me. BUT when we have capacity to consider our choices it is important to acknowledge that we can make with less impact. Because to not do so isn’t aligned with our values.
We can still make but we can make using scraps. We can make slower. We can try to seperate our making from the latest sparkly trend, and remember we belong because we exist and not because we have?
We can make in all sorts of ways that are more ethical, but perhaps are less shiny because they involve making choices that perhaps are less consumeristic and involve less material use and less speed?
Again, there is a tension here and it is a tension that I try to ponder rather than solve.
Pondering and sitting in this question-asking space of uncertainty with grace is the only thing I have found that works for me. To be simply asking the questions and finding a way to walk the tightrope between values and desires in a way that feels like I am in alignment.
I’d love to hear how you sit with this question. And if you ponder or if you have found a “solution” within your practice. It’s a tricky one.
Felicia x
Posts that are thinking about this idea in other ways include Enough Is As Good As A Feast and Stash Less: Making A Making List.
