In January we shot one of our Issue 10 photo spreads with Lisa Kannakko, inspired by food and fashion! The proofs are looking good, but you’ll have to wait and see. I don’t want to give too much away, but I will say it involves a chicken.
Photography by Avery Moore.
How did you dress in high school?
Terribly. I went to a private middle school where we all wore uniforms, so by the time I started high school I had no idea how to dress. First, I wore these baggy corduroys every day, plus lots of Emily Strange stuff. Then I got really into ska music - I thought I was the coolest kid ever, going to shows every weekend with ripped jeans, band t-shirts, and hair dyed black. It’s painful to look back on. Towards the end of high school I started to become interested in fashion, but still played it a bit safe - I had that “Audrey Hepburn, but edgier” phase that so many teen girls go through.
Who would you rather be trapped in a broken elevator with — Karl Lagerfield, Tyra Banks, or Lady Gaga?
Gaga. I’d use the time to get her to teach me the Bad Romance dance.
If you could dress like your favourite food what would it be?
This one time when I was a teenager, I stayed home sick from school and made layered jell-o with six different flavours. It’s not my favourite food per se, but I think it’d be pretty neato to translate into an outfit.
Last fashion related book or article you read. Was it good or bad?
It was a profile on Rodarte in the New Yorker. It was an alright read, but it didn’t really give me any new information and I didn’t agree with the author’s interpretation of their spring collection. I’m kind of a huge Rodarte fan - I read everything I can about them. Kate Mulleavy and I have the same favourite band, book and movie and that gives me the warm fuzzies.
What fashion blog do you think is underrated?
There are many, but lately I’ve been digging À l’Allure Garçonnière. Canadian ladies with intelligent musings on fashion? Yes please.
What fictional character has the best style?
Tie, between Pretty in Pink’s Duckie and Annie Hall. I like anybody - lady, gent, or other - who can rock a good vest.
What do you think about the relationship between fashion and conspicuous consumption?
Oh man - I think it would be hard to pretend that that relationship doesn’t exist, especially in a lot of mainstream fashion magazines. That being said, I’ve always been more interested in how people wear their clothes than the money spent on them (and I’m pretty sure that sentiment is shared amongst the Wornettes). I do tend to purchase my own clothing rather than making it (I’ve never been that handy with a sewing machine), but thanks to my university-student budget I’ve learned to become creative in finding thirty different ways to wear the same pair of jeans.
What movie’s costumes/clothes were better than their plot?
Would it be cliche to say Marie Antoinette? Yes? Ok, I’m going to go with Miranda July’s wardrobe in You and Me and Everyone We Know. Half the Worn staff tries to convince me I have no soul for disliking this movie, though it’s been a while since I’ve seen it so I should probably just give it another chance. For the record in every interview I’ve read with July she herself seems pretty cool - although all this is me straying from the original very simple question about the movie’s clothes. I liked those pink ballet shoes, let’s leave it at that.
What are your thoughts about this quote? “On matters of style, swim with the current, on matters of principle, stand like a rock.” – Thomas Jefferson
I’m not against the occasional swim with the current, but I think that really depends on where it is heading! I’m in the “do what feels right to you, everything else is incidental” camp.
Finish this sentence: There are two kinds of people in this world….
Those who can properly pronounce “Olivier Theyskens” and those who just sort of mumble his name when it comes up in conversation. I am in the latter category.
We’ve been very happy and oh so busy bees in the office today, packing up all the orders that came from starring in etsy’s self-publishing feature. The timing was awesome, as we just started offering gift packs with issues 4,5,6,7 and 8 in our etsy shop and also on our website. Thanks esty!
Mary Ping’s Slow and Steady Wins the Race
photography by Diana Pau
It was a very encouraging sight. A crowd gathered in a standing room only space on a chilly January night to hear a panel discussion about sustainable fashion. The talk was hosted by Francesca Granata and Sarah Scaturro, curators of “Ethics + Aesthetics = Sustainable Fashion“, an exhibition currently on view at the Pratt Manhattan Gallery. Their thought provoking exhibition explores some of the diverse ways local designers are approaching sustainable fashion. They range from designers who use recycled and organic materials to those who opt for production strategies that challenge the seasonal cycles of fashion. The show’s organizational themes “Reduce, Revalue, Rethink” sound like a spin off of “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” (a mantra that for better or worse was probably drilled into all of us at some time during elementary education) but “revalue” and “rethink” relate to clothing in specific ways; think of valuing good design and durable quality materials, and questioning the disposable fast fashion cycle. The panel discussion I was lucky enough to get a seat for last week brought together two designers represented in the exhibition: Slow and Steady Wins The Race and Uluru, as well as Julie Gilhart, fashion director of Barney’s New York. One of the highlights of the discussion for me was seeing how makers, curators and retailers agreed that there is sometimes a negative stigma attached to sustainable design. Even Gilhart admits that many of her style savvy conscious customers still wince at label ‘organic’ and its hippie-connotations:’ “They still think its going to be a burlap sack!” But thanks to initiatives like hers at an influential store like Barney’s, these ideas are slowly beginning to change - largely because they focus on seeking the best examples of design.
recycled appliqued sweater by ULURU stitched by Alabama Chanin
photography by Kate & Camilla
Although sustainable fashion has been able to piggyback off of the momentum of related environmental and climate change concerns, these designers are thinking big-picture and are more focused on creating a good product than self-consciously promoting “green design”. Neither Slow and Steady Wins The Race nor Uluru actively market themselves as “sustainable” but their principles are evident to anyone who takes an interest in their creations that employ recycled and repurposed materials, and throw a wrench into the constantly churning wheels of the fashion cycle.
Finally, a point of discussion that is articulated in different ways in the exhibition gave me pause…so much so that I’m rolling it over in my brains still. Part of the notion of revaluing involves “excavating an emotional connection to clothes,” finding that personal link between yourself and the material, whether through a family heirloom or something tied to a significant memory, whatever it is that makes you want to keep and cherish a garment. I warm to this idea intuitively, but the idea of emotional attachment is, in so many ways, the antithesis of ‘cool’ – it’s the opposite of a fashion cycle. Distance and detachment are necessary to be able to replace the old with the next best thing, and have been integral in the fashion system since the start. And tough I believe the whole thing has spun out of control, I’m curious to see how this new consciousness is going to play out, if this kind of revaluing can actually be taught, or if consumers can be won over by good design. Its easy to sit back and say time will tell, but as resources are being depleted, and economic decline is putting the pressure on, it may not be long before we find out.
- Sonya Topolnisky
