Beautiful Morning

I got up early yesterday morning to turn off the garden irrigation.  Early, in this case, is 6:20.  The grass was absolutely dew-soaked and my feet dripped all the way to the dining hall.  I took it easy and read a few magazines with my granola, since I haven't had a morning off in a while.  At 7:30 (an unseemly time it would have been a month ago) I walked back to my residence and passed the gardeners hoeing corn in the morning light.  It was irresistible.



After obtaining permission from all, I skipped from row to row photographing them.  Took a stroll around the block. More photos.  Returned.  Set myself to working, stepped outside, and turned right around for my guitar.  I sat by the willow and played all I knew to the perfect breeze, and when I was finally done, flute music wafted in from far away.  "Summertime, and the livin' is easy," it said.  Yet it smells and feels like a gorgeous fall.



Then I followed a woman with a saxophone to meet the flute music down by the dirt road.  Plans were made to sneak up on the gardeners with a dirge and a mock procession.  This morphed quickly into a parade of seven, with red costumes and red flag (and mock battle wounds and signs en francais), in honor of Bastille Day.



Then raw sweet corn and tempeh for lunch.  Yum.

So Kristy over at One Dress Protest has just listed a bunch of questions for people who did the ODP experiment for a month.  Because I'm lazy today (and annoyed that someone took my clothes from the dryer before they were dry, and I had to rig up a clothes line in my bedroom and now feel entitled to being lazy), questions and answers are separate.

1. What was the primary reason you felt compelled to ODP?
2. Did you feel that ODP allowed you to address and engage your initial reasons for joining?
3. Did anything surface that you didn’t anticipate as you ODP’d?
4. Care to share any reactions from others?
5. How did ODP affect your experience of yourself in a public setting? Did it challenge/boost your self-confidence? In what ways? In what circumstances?
6. How did ODP affect your experience of yourself privately?
7. Did you find it logistically challenging (i.e. laundry wise)?
8. Did you find it exceptionally restrictive or freeing?
9. How do you think this influenced your approach to future clothing consumption?
10. Any thing else to share?

1. Honestly, I jumped on it as a "reason" or "excuse" to try wearing something different.  I'd been wanting to experiement with Plain dress for some time, and it seemed easier to jump on the ODP bandwagon than to do it on my own.  If people asked for my reasons, I could say it was a blogger's challenge or something like that, without having to make them understand my pretty fuzzy reasons.

2. A few people asked me during or after the experiment if I were Amish, or Mennonite, or Quaker.  These have all been known as Plain people.  To me, this sort of signaled that I was on the right track. 

3.  I didn't anticipate being so annoyed with my belt.  I also didn't expect that the *style* of my dress would surpass onedressness as a source of worry.  My month ended up being less about wearing the same dress every day and more about wearing a weird dress at all.

4.  Notable: "So that's what you're wearing these days?"  "Just so you know, people have been wondering if you were Amish, with the dress, and the head thing [bandana]."  "In case you don't realize, I'm giving you an opening to talk more about your dress."  "Did you make your dress?  It's awesome!"  "I know you've been wearing that [dirty work outfit, one of my dress exceptions] since you arrived [3 1/2 weeks], but I want to say I really like that outfit!"

5.  I moved in with a bunch of hippies.  In many ways, my dress fit in.  I wasn't the only one wearing weird stuff, or wearing the same thing every day.  Sometimes that was nice.  Sometimes I enjoyed thinking that new people meeting me were assuming all sorts of things about me and my dress.  Prideful in a way.  Sometimes I liked having my own "brand" that people might know me by.  And sometimes I fiddled with my belt and the fit a lot.  I wanted people to see me as attractive.

6.  Many Plain and Modest people have different standards in public and in private, or among family/same sex versus strangers/different sex.  Since I wore my dress in private too, as much for me as for anyone else, it felt like a special gift to myself.  A kind of a secret.  It felt like me.  But an extension of that feeling is that it feels weird to put other clothes on now.  Like they aren't me.  As if I am what I wear...

7. I share laundry facilities (two washers, a dryer, a clotheslines) with maybe thirty other people AND with the community laundry (sheets, work clothes, all that).  So I couldn't just wash my clothes whenever I felt like it.  Actually, the drying was the problem.  Hand wash, OK, but I don't know if my things will dry overnight on the line, or if it will rain today, or if the dryer will be free when I have an hour, or if all of this corresponds to when my clothes actually need washing.  I feel like it should have been much easier for most people.  Was it?

8.  No, neither.  Just easy.

9. Well, I've already been trying to reduce what I have.  I've already cut out most things that are extremely occasion-specific.  I still have struggled with browsing at Goodwill and buying clothes I don't need (though sometimes I do need what I buy there, like jeans).  I don't buy many clothes.  And now I have zero clothing budget and a source of free clothes for lending.  I probably won't be buying any clothes.    And I feel like all of that information has to be stated, because it's happening simultaneously with ODP, and it’s hard to discern the impact from ODP.  Did it change my views, strengthen them, or merely confirm what was already there?  I think I did learn this: It’s worth it to have clothes that fit, look good, suit a majority of situations, last a long time, and are easy to take care of.  If they don’t fit those criteria, they’re not worth the materials and energy that went into making them.

10. I might shorten this dress, give it a waist, or make thin, permanent ties.  I really love the fabric and the color.  It makes a great nightgown and cover to and from the shower.  It’s fun to wear long, tied with an empire waist.  I like my dress.  It’s special to me.  I will probably wear it, and patch it, and wear it out, and cut it down to make new things.

Whew!  That's that.  More reflections later.

The End of ODP Month

Sooooo...yeah.  That's that.  One month of wearing one dress (with limited exceptions).  I regret not being able to keep better track throughout the month, but I wanted more socializing with my new neighbors and less of sitting in my room on my computer.  I would still like to mention a few things about my experience.

First, my exceptions.  I was very often wearing my hiking pants and T-shirt for garden work, woodshop work, and other jobs that were dirty or where a loose skirt would be impractical.  Sometimes this was for a few days in a row, and sometimes I changed back into my dress at the end of a shift.  I did put on a costume to be in a small marching band.  I put on colorful and flowing festival clothes for the huge community holiday.  Part of my festival attire became my contra dance attire.  And when I ripped the seat of my hiking pants during a shift, I changed them out for similar pants that I have worn in their place since that time.

Now on to explanations.  My exceptions do agree with my internal sense of fairness; that is, I don't feel I broke the spirit of the rules with them.

My "work" clothes stayed the same throughout the month, besides the tear.  Same shoes, same plain grey T-shirt.  The replacement pants felt like they occupied the same stylistic space as the hiking pants (having an "outdoorsy" feel to them).  I wore this outfit for all types of physical work and physical play.  And I'm mending the tear while creating this blog post, never fear!


I only realized I'd torn my pants when I tried to brush the dirt off my bottom.




















It was very important to me to wear festival clothes when the big holiday came.  I knew this before my ODP month started.  This was the sort of holiday where practically all work stops because everyone has taken off of work.  It is THE holiday in this community, a holiday in the old, nonreligious sense.  I wanted a sort of visual suggestion of Pagan merriment and frolic.  Perhaps braiding my hair and making a crown of flowers would have filled this need for me.  In fact, I would have loved that.  But I went the route of attire and temporary tattoos this time. 

What some of the festive people chose.
pic by Cloud




The marching band was the day of the festival.  The uniforms were cobbled-together outfits of black.  I helped make epaulets and cockades of gold rope scraps, which we then stitched to coats and hats.  The ecological angle of these band uniforms is that they came from the community's common closet, and when we were done with them, they returned again to be worn by someone else (perhaps without the rope).  Nothing was purchased; no money exchanged hands.  It's a nice arrangement.





See, I've still been wearing the One Dress!

 


















Ah, contra dance.  It eventually deserves a post of its own.  So lively.  So high-energy.  So much spinning.  If belly dancers need a little jingle-jingle, contra dancers need a little swirly-swirly.  That means that most women and some men wear skirts that flair nicely during a spin.  So I recycled my festival attire, thereby minimizing the total number of outfits I wore this month.

  

Contra dance/festival skirt on the move.


  



 I eventually stopped being nervous about what people might say about my One Dress.  In the three weeks since I moved and met new people, I only got two pieces of feedback that weren't positive (they were neutral, sort of general remarks with skeptical expressions).  By far, people told me they liked my dress, it looked good on me, they liked how I wore it, and so on.  It's hard for me to know whether all this feedback comes from the dress's style (which is not mainstream) or from the fact that I was wearing it all the time.  However, if I were to venture a guess, I'd say people were reflecting on the style.  I think they really didn't care that I was wearing it every day.  No one remarked about how often I wore it, ever.  I understand that different social groups and classes have different rules.  I understand that my social group is not mainstream.  Yet I think what I learned can apply to everyone: People don't care about your appearance as much as you are afraid they do.

Everything drying on holiday morning, skivvies too.

I wonder if I will go on a clothes-wearing binge next week.  I will surely wear something new tomorrow while I do laundry.  Laundry has been the biggest problem for me.  My residence is dorm-style, and laundry is public (in another building).  I can't do laundry naked.  All my clothes get dirty, and the least dirty (my dress) ends up being what I wear while I wash the rest.  I could have given myself a laundry outfit, I suppose, to wear a few hours a week.  But this is being legalistic, I think.  I wanted to play by the rules of the game, and "laundry outfit" was not in the rules I made up.  Still, lesson learned: My biggest problem was laundry, not what people thought of me and my dress.



Last day of ODP month!

What is more likely than a binge is that I will slowly start wearing "new" garments.  I'll wear the One Dress often.  And when I receive the box of clothes that I didn't move with me, many of those garments will likely go into community use.  I sort of dread having to go through them, remembering the memories I've attached to them, remembering the ones that I wished fit better than they did.  ODP made life pretty easy.  Yay.

I will post some reflections on ODP month in the future.  Stay tuned if you're interested.

I have to admit I haven't given more than a few seconds of thought to my blog over the past week.  It just hasn't been compatible with my transition to a new home.  However, I have received many welcome words and hugs here, and even many compliments on my One Dress!  I was apprehensive on moving day, but then I saw many people in colorful hippie skirts, and I felt relieved.  I continued and continue still to be a little afraid of how my dress is received, day by day, but I have noticed several people wearing the same memorable clothes day after day, and I suppose what I am doing isn't odd at all!  I even harvested broccoli while discussing my garden-mate's former performance piece; She once wore the same outfit for a month, with no alternate outfits and no laundering.  Radical!

In the interest of, let's say, partical disclosure, I didn't just move to any old suburb.  I've actually taken up with a wonderful intentional community.  One could skip description and call it a farm full of hippies, and while that doesn't do justice to the whole, that would be a good three-second designation.  So I am really blessed to be in an environment that is supportive of non-mainstream choices.  I don't know if it would be harder if I had a "normal" job and daily schedule.  Am I almost cheating by doing ODP in such a tolerant environment?  What about the woman who didn't wash her outfit all month: Does that fact that she was in college at the time make her experiment less worthy of praise than it would be otherwise?  Not that "praise" is the word I am looking for.

Ack!  This is actually Day 19!  This is sort of unbelievable.  And it's like there's almost nothing to say about wearing the same dress every day for two weeks.  Maybe it's because I backpacked for eight months with the same clothes, but then that wasn't in "civilization."  Maybe it's because it's not a big deal.  It's culturally abnormal in the West, but what does that mean?  It's not unsanitary.  It's not impractical.  It's just not what we're used to in the twenty-first century.  The only real problem I can think of is the fear of social censure, and some people will sensibly ask if they really want to work or play with people who would punish or ostracize them based on the number of outfits they wear.  But the fear seems bigger than the reality.

I am itching to play with my clothes again.  Nevertheless, ODP is working out pretty well for me.

Standing in my new room!

Clothing Choice and Unhappiness

I'm finding something aesthetically displeasing about my dress.  Disappointingly early on.

I've felt this way from the time I finished the dress actually, a few days before the ODP experiment.  I'm drawn to T-tunics.  I've seen T-tunics look great on people at SCA events.  They have centuries of history behind them.  I have T-tunic garb.  So why am I not 100% happy with the way the dress hangs at full length?  I keep fiddling with the belt to try to balance things out.  Is the dress too long?  Is it too narrow?  Is the belt too short?  Is it too thick?  Is the body too full?  Is it too untailored?

I see two ways of interpreting this problem.

First, it might mean that simple or Plain dress requires some mental effort.  A chosen uniform or style should be selected to have near-universal suitability.  It should be functional and easy.  It should feel slightly casual and slightly dressy.  It should adapt to changing work or weather conditions.  It should be sturdy. It should match one's ethical standards. It should be comfortable, both physically and psychologically.  All of which means, of course, that you can't just run to the store, grab the first thing you see, and make that your Plain.  This is more of a problem for women than men, because we have almost endless styles available to us, each carrying their own cultural meanings we may or may not wish to convey.  And while men have style options too, there just aren't as many.  So while it seems that the men outside of Plain communities are able to easily settle on Plain pants and shirt (and myabe suspenders and hat) for themselves, we women are *agonizing* in blogs and internet forums over what to wear.  Not that it's much different for men and women who aren't going Plain.  Which leads me to...



Mennonite Women, 2005
Photo by atomicity via Flikr, used under Creative Commons



Second, my dress problem might mean that it makes A Lot Of Sense to be part of a community where style is regulated.  We rely far too much in the West on expressing our "selves" through our clothes.  Not that I don't understand it; I do.  I'm quite obsessed with clothes, and always have been, in a hippie/costuming/ritualistic way.  And I have a lot of clothes, else it wouldn't be a big deal to me to wear one dress for a month.  But most people in the world today have only a few sets of clothes.  And for most of human history of the West, we too had only a few sets of clothes.  And it was just fine.  Now with the externalized environmental and human costs of productions, we can acquire a lot of clothing for very little money as well as afford to change fashion every year.  In addition to being abusive and wasteful, this gives us too many options, and we end up wasting our lives agonizing over decisions. 

Really and truly.  Barry Schwartz showed in his book The Paradox of Choice how having more choices makes us unhappy.  (If you're not interested in reading his book, he gives a 20-minute video summary here.)  We think, "With all these options, I can make the perfect choice!"  Then when we make the choice, we feel bad, thinking "Did I make the best choice?  I could have done better.  I wish I had made a different choice.  I'm a failure."  Or, wanting to put off feelings of regret and failure, we postpone or avoid making decisions at all.  Paralysis.  All because of choice.  In this light, a uniform is freeing, no matter what it looks like on you.

So I stand in the mirror wondering why my dress, which I could have sewn a million different ways, isn't perfect.  Kristy at ODP gave good advice in recommending we clear out and hide away the clothes not part of our experiment.  Out of sight, out of mind, so we no longer think of "missed opportunities" when we put on our One Dresses. By simplifying and accepting limits to our wardrobes, as well as to other parts of our lives, we are happier.

Plaid Tunic Dress, Part II: One Dress Protest

So the dress is done, for now.  Ta-da!

Thought process and construction:
As I said in my previous post, I cut the dress out as a T-tunic.  This is just the sort of dress that I like, even if it does look a little prairie in that plaid (talk about a "fast from fashion!").  It is made of a cotton that should launder well.  I had considered ties for the back to draw in excess, or loops to lift up the hem sometimes.  After experimenting with these options, I decided the first didn't look good and the second put too much strain on this particular fabric.  So it's just the dress and the belt.  I can belt it higher or lower, or even lift the hem with the belt.  This belt is out of my garb bag, and I am considering making a wider one.  We'll see.  This style will also handle weight fluctuations, should I have any, and allows room for movement, should I end up having to do practical things while wearing it.  I even enclosed all the seams to make it last longer in the laundry!

Stylish?  No.  But it's practical, and it's me.

Now, I am going to wear this dress as part of Kristy Powell's One Dress Protest.  On her blog, she writes:

One Dress Protest is me, Kristy Powell, wearing one dress for one year in order to protest the ideas and motivations behind how and why I wear my clothes. Over the year I aim to challenge the ways identity is constructed through clothing, what sustainability means for consumption, how our perception of others is so often based on external presentation, and what “fashion” ultimately means for me going forward.

She also calls her experiment a "fast from fashion."  While several other worthy women have done similar experiments with clothing (my favorite being Alex Martin's Brown Dress Project at http://www.littlebrowndress.com/), Kristy's protest seems unique in avoiding accessories and supplemental garments that create new "looks."  The idea that one may wear not only the same garment but the same outfit (with layers for weather) day after day reminds me of modern Plain dress, which is something I've been looking into for a few years.  Kristy also brings a spiritual component into her protest and blog entries, so while we don't share the same style or religion, I find her quite inspiring.

 I am looking forward to this June 3-July 3 experiment, particularly because I will have company in it.  And the invitation to join in for a month was what I needed to go from thinking about Plain dress experiments to trying Plain dress experiments.  My disadvantage is that I am moving this weekend (exciting!), and one-dress-protesting will be the (sort of) first impression my new neighbors/coworkers/friends will have of me.  No problem, I think, except for my confidence about the matter. Perhaps if I'd been doing it months, I wouldn't worry.  But I do.  I worry I might alienate some people right off the bat, but I realize this may be nothing but my own fears speaking.  In light of this situation, I give myself permission to bend the rules if I feel it necessary.  But!  My first rule that I have laid down for my experiment is: Be honest with yourself.  Everything feels scary at first, and I have to push the limits of my comfort to grow.  So I owe myself a little discomfort, and I'll try not to cheat on the rules, or on myself.

Rules for myself:
1. I will be honest with myself.

2. My "one dress" following Kristy's example will be my new plaid dress.  I will wear it for all occasions that do not functionally require other clothes.

3. Reasonable exceptions include outdoor labor (nylon pants, T-shirt tbd, blue sweatshirt), sleeping/lounging/breakfast (PJ pants and T-shirt TBD), excercise (same as outdoor labor).  Other exceptions may discover themselves.  See Rule One.

4. The goal for this experiment is to have dedicated outfits for each function so fewer "looks" enter the rotation overall.  I will not, however, have multiples.  Should my clothes become too dirty (funky) between washings for my taste (that's saying something), I will wear something else rather than make others suffer.  That said, I will try to launder regularly within the constraints of my living situation and the weather.
5. Most of my shoes serve specific functions.  Other than those, I will have a pair of casual sneakers and a pair of sandals to wear.
6. Go-to warm layers are green skirt, maroon sweater, brown long-sleeved shirt, and maroon coat if needed.  Other accessories are fair game if called for due to weather or activity (poncho, apron, etc.).  I will stick to the yellow bandana and possibly make some other solid-color scarves for my head, tbd.

 Here goes!

A Walk in the Woods

I've used the well-known title of Bill Bryson's humorous book for a good reason: I took a three-day stroll along the Appalachian Trail this week!

I hiked a little over half the trail in 2009 (the trail is around 2180 miles long these days) so I didn't feel too bad about an eight-mile round trip this time.  The section was one I'd done twice before, and remembered for its beauty and accessibility to beginners.  So I encouraged my dad to try it out with me.

A grassy bald, cloaked in buttercups.

Tunnels of mountain laurel mark the entrance into another realm.

Sunlight falls softly onto a lush green paradise.

I picture it from time to time, my magical place.