I've wondered about the women artisans involved in Marketplace: Handwork of India as I have worked on this post. Can they imagine the life of an aging academic blogger in the middle of Kansas? But even more, can I imagine their lives in the environs of Mumbai?
Women were were formerly unemployed or "unemployable" have been building new lives through self-help via MarketPlace since 1986. The MarketPlace model of self-help involves them in every aspect of production. They acquire basic skills that they then use in planning aspects of their lives, taking initiative in community actions and their children's schools, and changing the relationships between them and their husbands and children.
As an artisan member of one of MarketPlace 14 cooperatives, they are involved in design workshops, plans for production, quality control, and transferring skills. Their product line has grown from quilts to apparel and home decor. The item I selected features hand embroidery, a feature that allows women to work from home and gives newcomers a quick start in a cooperative.
The clothing adapts Asian garments for American customers in cottons perfect for warm summer temperatures. Many of the items found in their catalogue work with a variety of Indian hand dyeing techniques that also involve artisans who carve blocks, tie threads, print and dye. Their work preserves some of India's rich textile traditions~batik, tie-dye, kalamkari~and avoids a machine-printed imitation.
Marketplace is a recognized Fair Trade movement and was one of the founding members of the Fair Trade Federation. And I am impressed by the work of founder, Pushpika Freitas.
I encourage you to visit their website, read a few of the stories about the changed lives of their artisans, the techniques involved in manufacture, and select an item or two for purchase. I have my eye on this kavita dress that gathers around the hem or these field pants in a richly patterned fabric. There are beautiful scarves and skirts and tunics. Oh, just go look for yourself.
MarketPlace is offering A $100 giveaway, unfortunately limited to US readers only. To enter, follow Rags and leave a comment below on the item that most strikes your fancy. The giveaway is open until midnight, April 6.
All bloggers are invited to appear in their pajama party best, however that might be construed.
Those not interested in appearing in their jammies
are welcome to contribute
a delicious midnight snack or brunch recipe.
calories not counted.
No action is necessary at this point. I just wanted everyone to put this event on their blogging calendars and begin thinking how you might approach this. On the morning of the event, I will post a Mr. Linky so that all who wish to participate can link up.
I have gone over budget in the month of March. One reason for this is having time to shop during Spring Break and the other is that I hadn't anticipated coming across a couple of unusual winter coats on the sale racks at my local thrifts. One of the mantras of thrifting is to learn to shop off season.
At left, you'll see a delicious wool jacket in a sort of Mondrian style. The label inside says it was made in Yugoslavia--which if one knows anything about world politics tells you that it was made before 2003. Price $10.
Below, you'll see my first fur. For 25 years I have fought with myself about the wearing of furs. I have tried on some lovely ones and even gone back to "visit" these coats until they are sold. I could not justify any of the lovely minks, even used.
DH was with me when I found this shearling. I made him carry it around
Savers so I would not put it back. Eventually, he grew impatient with
my browsing, paid for the jacket ($15) and went to the car to wait for me to
finish. So, I guess technically I didn't "buy" it, but DH would not
have bought it if he hadn't seen the look in my eye that told him I
wanted it.
Perhaps that is a cowardly way of shopping...but I come across other blog posts in which I see bloggers seeking their partner's thoughts on an item. And because of the short length of this jacket, I suspect I'll actually wear it quite a lot...if we ever have winter again.
My other big expense for the month was a new pair of saltwater sandals of a style I've admired for two decades. I've avoided the purchase as the shoes are designed for children who live near a beach. ~$40. I am still under budget for the year.
I'm curious how you might deal with clothing purchases that you feel conflicted about. What's your process of talking yourself into something?
I hope to redeem myself before the end of this week with a post that is something entirely new for Rags against the Machine. Until then, go take a gander at all the lovely ladies participating in Visible Monday this week. And if you're so inclined, you can participate too. Thanks Patti for giving structure to my blog week!
My visit to Sears, one of two remaining anchor stores, in a dying shopping mall was bittersweet. In the early 70s, Metcalf South was where I purchased my first pair of Frye boots at an after Christmas sale and then, I thought of this mall as an upscale shopping destination. Times have changed...raising questions in my mind about why some malls thrive and others die.
I wasn't even certain that Sears stores still carry clothing as I have come to think of this iconic store of my youth as a place to purchase tools, tires, and riding lawn-mowers. DH was along on my visit during Spring Break and did browse the tool department, as I wandered through the first floor. As the video shows, I began in the women's department, snapping photos of several things that caught my eye, and then through the petites to a fairly large Lands' End display.
Lands' End sells wardrobe basics and classics and in Sears, they carried mens', womens' in all sizes, and children's clothing. I was impressed...but also concerned that EVERYTHING seemingly was marked down 60-75%. Was this store I wondered one of those slated to go out of business soon?
Sears began with a rejected shipment of watches in the late 19th century. Richard Warren Sears bought the watches, selling them for a considerable profit to his fellow station agents in Minnesota. Soon, he had begun selling watches through mail-order catalogs. Sears knew that farmers typically bought their supplies from local general stores at high prices and developed his business based on clearly stated prices in his catalogue.
By 1895, Sears was producing a 500+ page catalog, which had become known as "the Consumers Bible." In 1933, it produced the first of its Christmas catalogs, known as the "Sears Wishbook." Annual copies of this catalog were well-beloved in the household I grew up in and my siblings would spend hours initialling the items we most wanted. Sometimes, it was used to create a make-shift high chair at holiday meals. In my grandmother's generation, the Sears catalog was a euphemism for toilet paper before the advent of indoor plumbing. This fascinating site chronicles the heyday of the Sears catalog. In 1993, Sears stopped production of its catalog due to declining sales and profits.
Sears first retail store opened in Chicago in 1925. From the 1920s-1950s, the firm built many urban department stores, expanding in the 1950s into suburban markets and malls. In fact, in 1959 it formed a corporation for developing malls. Until the early 1980s, Sears was the US' largest retailer. Since its merger with Kmart in 2004, a number of Kmart stores have been converted to the Sears Grands concept. These stores, several of which are in my area, carry everything that a regular Sears carries, plus toiletries, toys, cleaning supplies, pet food, and some groceries. In North America, there are nearly 1300 Sears stores today.
During my visit, I was not approached by a single clerk. I found this very strange after the pleasant experience I'd had at Penney's that morning. This may be due to a variety of ways Sears has changed their base wage to be successful in a highly competitive environment. However, stores with a Lands' End shop, as this one was, pay their staff an hourly wage and 3% commission on all catalog/internet sales placed in their store. And they receive a discount on merchandise.
As I shopped and rode the escalator to the second floor, I heard public announcements in Spanish and found that the signage in the store was bilingual as well. The displays were neat and bargains were abundant, but the store was empty, empty, empty on a sunny Tuesday afternoon. Reading up on the declining situation, I learned that Sears has a tendency to divert monies from maintenance and improvement of stores to non-retail financial investments. It tends to advertise tools more than its clothing.
I like Lands' End, but I spent nary a cent on this outing. My readers no doubt remember the Sears catalog. Any memorable experiences attached to it?
Do you ever have those days when enough people ask how how you're feeling to subconsciously know that you look like hell? Tuesday was one of those days for me. I had driven to campus on two hours sleep and then spent three hours in a darkened classroom, while our learning community watched "Avatar" together. Our students were to be looking for plot points and anthropological concepts which we will discuss in Thursday's class. I took seven pages of notes in a valiant attempt to NOT nod off in my own class. I could not wait to get home to take a nap.
I avoided stopping for lunch on my 55 mile commute, knowing it would make me sleepier to eat. At home, I lay down in my work clothes and did not awake for 5 hours! And then, in the remaining hours between 8 and midnight, I did everything I could think of to do to promote sleep. I read, I meditated, I took a warm shower, I avoided coffee and the internet, and I swallowed my melatonin with a couple of bedtime beers. My circadian rhythms have been topsy-turvy like this for a number of years now.
For a long time, I chalked this up to menopause. But every so often, I will go an entire night without sleep. I was relieved to read this article from the BBC, a month or so ago. Roger Ekirch, an historian at Virginia Tech, has unearthed a wealth of evidence to suggest that humans once slept in two distinct chunks of time. They'd first sleep a couple of hours after dusk for a period of time and then rise for a couple of hours before returning to bed for a second sleep.
This pattern began to disappear in the 17th century and by the 1920s, the idea of a second sleep had entirely receded due to street lighting, domestic lighting, and the advent of coffee houses. Gradually the idea of this broken sleep receded with industrialized society. Ekirch believes many sleeping problems stem from this preference for bi-modal sleep and the presence of artifical light.
I get enough sleep, but I am often doing it with the rest of the world is busy with their workaday lives. But, one aspect of my sleep patterns that IS disturbing to me is the lack of dreams I have. Some Buddhists believe that when dreaming stops, the sleeper has achieved enlightenment. I don't think that is the case with me. The few dreams I do have are often very memorable. For example, last month, I dreamt that I was giving birth and that the infant was stuck half-in and half-out, requiring the assistance of DH to complete the birth. DH was very pleased about this dream.
But I sometimes dream about my blogging friends as well. Last fall, during my hiatus from blogging, I dreamt that Citizen Rosebud was having a huge slumber party in an old house in Sacramento. We had all been invited and we were running about between the various rooms of this house in different stages of undress, busily styling ourselves and swapping clothes. In another dream, I dreamt that I was riding in a car with Kari from Chronicles of K. and that we spotted Catie Beatty of Fleur d'Elise on a street corner and began honking like maniacs to get her attention. What a small world blogging can be!
In any case, I'm curious how sleep might affect your appearance. And I also wonder how many of my readers may have similar sleep difficulties related either to menopause and/or bi-modal sleep patterns. Do you worry about it? And what sort of sleep aids have you tried? And, if I organized a "slumber party" in which bloggers appeared in their pajamas, would you participate?
And now, pretend that this tiny pic is a dream or a nightmare.
I thrifted this top and skirt last fall when I had the vague idea from
the runway shows that the sea and mermaids would be some sort of trend
this spring. Incredibly, the skirt is by Talbots and the reversible top
has a tag that reads "Flair." The sandals were thrifted several years
ago.
I'm discovering a curious side-effect of my Window Shopping Project. Although it was designed to cut down on some of my thrifting, as almost every basic was already in my closet, it has led to some wilder and wilder choices at the thrifts. And I blame Desiree at PullYourSocksUp. This week I thrifted a metallic purple leotard! (only $1.49 and DH was visibly excited by it). I even took photos of myself in the thing...
I've been reading Desiree's blog since before I began Rags, but something about Citizen Rosebud's interview with her has haunted me.She said, "There is a crossroads where you either decide to toe the line or live life your own way." Jarringly, I realized just how "safe" I've become in my so many aspects of my career and my life. It was a surprising realization, as I've always imagined I was a bit of a rebel.
In this second pastel look, I'm wearing the yellow jeans I sported last summer for the Rosie the Riveter post, but paired it with a very feminine jacket by iF. I've never heard of this label before, though it has a full-length poem on it. Initially, I had tried the jacket with this tailored green blouse which must have been made for Girl Scout Leaders or as an Army issue. I was greatly excited to find the blouse as I had read that Mainbocher once designed these uniforms.
You'll see that my hair was a bit wild from the blustery wind that day!
This post is a two-fer. I'm linking up with Visible Monday, sponsored by Patti at NotDeadYet Style and also, with Tammy's Trending through the Decades post. Both events are open to anyone and I encourage you all to participate.
I'm curious. Do any of you feel like rebels? And what form does it take for you?
When I walked out of jcpenney, this past Tuesday morning, I had snapped 178 photos within an hour. The slideshow this week is longer (8 minutes) than the previous ones in my Window Shopping Project. It progresses from Dresses to Swimwear to Juniors to Intimates & sleepwear to Tights, Purses, Women's Sizes, Shoes, Career dressing, Cosmetics, Jewelry, Sundresses, Boutiques, Jeans. Having visited three mid-level retail department stores this week, I must say that I was impressed!
The last time I stepped foot in this store was last September when my daughter was shopping a last minute bridesmaid dress. I was along to corral the grandson. It was early on a Saturday evening and I found that shopping disorienting. But since, this store like 1,106 others operating in all 50 U.S. states and Puerto Rico is undergoing a significant change.
The last week in January, Ron Johnson, the same man who launched Apple's retail stores and cut his retail teeth at Target, rolled out "a new logo, a new spokesperson, a new pricing strategy, an investment in Martha Stewart Omnimedia, and another designer partnership with Nanette Lepore."
Johnson has said, "We want our customers to shop on their terms, not ours...By setting our store monthly and maintaining our best prices for an entire month, we feel confident that customers will love shopping when it is convenient for them, rather than when it is expedient for us." I saw first hand evidence of the new pricing strategy in the juniors department of this store, although the changes will continue through 2015.
No doubt, American readers of my blog have seen clips of Ellen DeGeneres advertisements for jcpenney and perhaps you were part of the controversy surrounding her selection as spokesperson. She, like Sam Walton before her, once worked for jcpenney. She is thought to "put the fun back in the retail experience." And perhaps, the fun in fundamental "Fair and Square" pricing. "Everyday pricing" refers to "our regular prices which are always great." "Month long values" are "even better prices on the things you need now." And "best prices," which you see some of in my video, indicate "our lowest prices," which "always happen on the 1st and 3rd fridays of every month, while they last."
The new logo alludes to the American flag in a subtle and sophisticated way...and it pervades everything from the merchandising to the shelf tags in the store I visited.
One wonders what James Cash Penney would think of these changes. Penney was one of the founders in 1902 of "The Golden Rule" store in Kemmerer, Wyoming. Unlike the discount retailers I reviewed in February that sprung up in the American Midwest, Penney's grew in the Rocky Mountain states. In 1963, J.C. Penney issued its first catalog. And years ago, I visited a catalog store in rural Montana. By 1993, J. C. Penney was the largest catalog retailer in the United States. In 2011, the company announced it would exit the catalog business.
I don't know that I've ever seen the television shopping channel(s) I have read that they developed and I can't say that I have ordered anything from their website, but I do think there are some exciting changes in store at jcpenneys.
In the hour I spent there, at least three sales assistants inquired whether I needed help, but no one intruded on my shopping experience. I was pleasantly surprised by the diversity of their assistants and of the clientele. A woman speaking French made her way with two children through the store. And only in the shoe department did a male clerk inquire what I might be doing snapping so many photos of the merchandise. I've never worked in retail so I wonder if employees have to deal with secret shoppers out to scope out quality control. Do any of my readers have insight about this.
In short, I would shop the revamped jcpenney, especially if I had an occasion for a new dress. And to answer last week's lingering question--the new approach to merchandising does not appear to extend to the outlet store.
Have any of my readers noticed the changes at jcpenney's? And what was the last thing you purchased there?
I thrifted this long-sleeved polo dress by Moda International because of the long sleeves. In this look, it is paired with a short-sleeved navy polo underneath, a stretch belt in navy, and a pair of flats--all thrifted. The dress is slightly big for me. Really wish I'd started my spring "Natural Glow" routine and that I had a pair of the boater shoes I'm seeing everywhere this spring.
I realized as I began this post that today is Pi Day, 3/14. In honor of this irrational and transcendent number, we all may have struggled with in our geometry classes, I offer this recipe for Grasshopper Pie.
20 oreo cookies (40 halves), fillings discarded, cookies crushed
5 Tbsp butter, melted
3/4 cup hot milk
24 large marshmallows
1/4 cup creme de menthe liqueur
2 tablespoons white creme de cacao
1 cup whipping cream, whipped
Optional A drop or two of green food dye.
Method
1 Preheat oven to 425°F. In a bowl, mix crushed oreo cookie
halves and butter. Pat into bottom and sides of 10 inch pie dish. Bake
in oven for 5 to 10 minutes; remove from oven and cool completely. Once
cooled, place in freezer to chill.
2 In saucepan, melt marshmallows in milk over medium heat.
Remove from heat and cool. Add creme de menthe and creme de cacao, and
mix well. Add a drop or two of green food dye if desired. Fold in
whipped cream. Pour into chilled pie shell. Freeze for 3 or 4
hours.
Serve with a dollop of whipped cream. Yield:Serves 8.
