Friday Follow-up | Designers as Makers & A Couple Outfits

6397 Shorty Jeans | ON SALE AT SLOWRE!!
Rag & Bone/JEAN turtleneck
Emerson Fry slides | few years old, gift from Emerson Fry
admonish leather tote | similar in brown leather

James Perse ruched skirt
James Perse slub crewneck shirt
Everlane cashmere cardigan
Golden Goose sneakers | secondhand from TheRealReal
admonish leather tote | similar in brown leather

The weather was quite warm for a few days this week, a welcome change from below freezing temperatures for so many days in a row.  That’s DFW weather for you, one day FREEZING and then next 75.  I can handle that.  I really love wearing dresses/skirts with cardigans, but we have a short window of time here where that’s possible.  We seem to go from winter to summer and back again, and then with mild days in between so I have to take advantage of those when they come.

It’s been quite a week!  I am so grateful for our discussion on my Married without Children post; writing that, and then reading your stories about having children/not having children made me feel much less alone, but also more comfortable with my own decision not to try for biological children.  It took me about a week to psyche myself up enough to write that post, and during that time, I was not so much working out what I wanted to say, but trying to flesh out my OWN feelings on the subject so I could write more coherently about them; writing things down really makes things “real” in a way they may not have felt before.  So when I published that post, I knew I had come to a turning point, and a “conclusion” in a way, and am now at peace in a way I wasn’t before.

So, thank you Michelle for asking me to write about it in the first place.  I loved doing the AMA, I think I’ll try and do one once a month? Would that be interesting? Speaking of AMA, I owe an exercise/nutrition post and that will come next week!

Reading/Watching

I started following this Canadian company, hoibo, for their paper bags a little while ago, and was really inspired by their latest blog post, and this in particular:

I think that designers greatly benefit from being makers. For several reasons, but this being one of the most important reasons – you are confronted with the reality of your own making. When you send your designs off to be manufactured by other people, local or from far away lands, you separate yourself from the failures of your own design. It’s not enough that you’ve made something beautiful. Beauty for the sake of beauty is not enough. You don’t see all the off-cuts that are bagged up and thrown into our landfills because it’s cheaper to throw it out than it is to deal with it.

Maybe that’s why I have such great respect for independent designers who are also makers (most tend to be); their designs are thoughtful, considered, and serious.  Great care is put into who is going to wear their pieces, how they will use them, and what happens to the extra bits.

Aside from Elizabeth Suzann’s pricing piece (LONG, but so worth a read), she posted on instagram this week that they’re doing a 90-day test of a new cotton canvas they may replace the cotton twill with: three women are wearing clyde pants in that material in different colorways to test how they hold up to wear meant to simulate 2-3 years’ worth of wear.  I love that so much, and it’s another great side effect of a designer also being a maker.

Speaking of makers, my friend (the designer/maker behind admonish) sent me this Portlandia reverse sweatshop sketch this week, which is hilarious, but also pointed.  Then I got sucked into watching more Portlandia sketches…

And, I started listening to podcasts more frequently this week.  I usually reserve listening to podcasts for plane travel, or long car rides, but I really enjoy them, and am trying to make an effort to listen to one every afternoon lately.  I started with catching up on some Dear Sugar, including this one Amy recommend on my Married without Children post.  I also like James Altucher, and listened to his podcast with Gretchen Rubin.  I’ve never read her blog or books (she wrote The Happiness Project), but found some interesting takeaways in the podcast I’m going to try and implement (“treats” and “being Gretchen” – lol, she talks about being “Gretchen” which is herself, of course, but also me, just without that pesky “t”!! ) – more on that later.

Shopping

No shopping for me this week; I haven’t even bought anything from the James Perse sale, although I have a couple things in my cart (the long skinny dress and the military jacket).

I did run across this REALLY AWESOME silk DOG shirt (!!) by Stella McCartney at Grechen’s Closet partner site, Hampden Clothing, and I love it so much.  It’s WAY too much $$$ for me, even with the 15% off GRECHEN15 coupon code, but who knows, it may end up 95% off at some point LOL.

How was your week? What are you looking forward to next week?

Oh, we have a new nephew arriving imminently, so we’ll be going to Atlanta for the bris when we know more about the timing.  Maybe next week…