Fashioning Self Beyond The Runway

Quarry image by Rene Habermacher via Filep Motwary

Estonian designer Reet Aus styles and models her own creations

So now that New York Fashion Week and The GreenShows have officially come to a close, I am here to say that there is life beyond the runway. Sure we all love the seductive and alluring qualities of the spectacle itself, but this complex production is simply a fleeting moment in a life that needs to be lived and shared organically. As someone who lives and breathes fiber, textiles, and concerns about environment each and every day, I could not help to be a bit pre-occupied this past week with the possibility of fashion labels being showcased on a stage that allowed the garments and accessories themselves to be in better dialogue with their true setting or environmental source, if you will.

'Zuster Sweostor Systir' by Mandy Greer

How else are we to understand the connections between materials, the limited resources, and the creative innovations that might secure our future? It is at moments like this that I realize that I am not at all a fashion writer, but a fashioner of ideas or collaborative possibilities. I am not looking to hang on to the petticoat hem of the status quo. I am searching for ways to highlight our fragilities, our strengths, and those designs that might render us uniquely beautiful.

(image by Beverly Semmes)

This is not a linear process and nor are most ideas connected to sustainable fashion, for that matter. Women or men who are not models should not typically be on the runway either, but in the end, who are we really designing for, if not for ourselves and the diversely rich landscape that we are hoping to remain connected to?

'Ground Cover 01' by Abigail Doan (2006)