Channelling your inner 50's housewife...

Yesterday, while wondering what to do with myself, I decided it was the perfect day to sew a skirt. I can never find skirts I like. Ever. So, I decided to pull out my mom's old sewing machine and look up a pattern on etsy.

I hadn't touched a sewing machine since last summer, when I inopportunely decided to make a dress on the eve of flying to Rome. So, there was some relearning to do (like, how to wind a bobbin). The most difficult part, however, was that the pattern wasn't really a pattern, but a template from which you draft a pattern yourself. So, I ended up spending a significant amount of time on the floor with newspaper. There were also no directions, so you had to channel your inner 50's housewife and magically know how all the pieces fit together, how to make a waistband, where to put the zipper, etc. 

The end result was definitely worth it (it sits at the natural waist and has pockets!). The technique for drafting the pattern allowed me to make it precisely to my measurements and it helped me learn a little bit about pattern drafting. (Next, I hope to make a pattern from well-loved clothes that need to be retired.)

 I also made matching Hardly Alice-inspired gloves with some random lace and ribbon I had in the closet. 

Ezra Pound: poet + fashionisto

Again, we bring to you for inspiration a terribly fashionable literatus (for comparison, see: William Faulkner, Joan Didion, and Bob Dylan). Ezra Pound is certainly best known for his poetry (and rightly so), most famously for "In a Station of the Metro"--

The apparition of these faces in the crowd

Petals on a wet, black bough.

Though Pound favored simplicity in his verse, this doesn't seem to apply to his fashion.

For instance, he sports this delightful fur-collared wool overcoat. The softness of the fur complements the coarse texture of the wool. This should make a comeback.

As should his smolder. One can just imagine it piercing one through the squalor and noise of the Paris metro (the inspiration for Pound's above-quoted poem).

Having already featured Dylan on this blog, I can't help but wonder if perhaps Pound's hair was an inspiration for Dylan (who picked his stage name after Dylan Thomas).

The Ranch: Alexa

When my six year old cousin waltzed in wearing a Hello Kitty sweatshirt and purple skinny jeans, all my longings for my lost childhood returned.

No sane adult would dare to wear that HK sweatshirt and those rainbow knee-high converse. 

But, when you're six, you can rock it.

You also just get to play all day, with the big kids.

No Direction Home

Lately, I've been finding that the song 'Down in the Valley'  by the Head and the Heart just keeps going through my head. 

Now, you might be wondering why that matters. 'Very good, Rebekah,' you say, 'I'm glad you have a penchant for neo-folk. That's just another artificial aspect of our society that you continually bemoan.'

Well, yes, legitimate point. But, the yearning at the heart of this music, and even the artificiality of its generation both point to an ever increasing problem in our society.

We are a culture completely devoid of expectations placed upon us from the outside.

In 'Down in the Valley,' the singer comments how he wishes he were 'a slave to an age-old trade.' There is something comforting and beautiful in continuing in a tradition, even if it means renouncing choice.

And, that is precisely the point. Most of us, from the beginning of the age of reason, have been told we could be whatever we want to be. We were read books about how we could be astronauts or the president. We watched movies in which characters struggled to break free from the restrictive shackles of 'traditional' societies.

And, as a result, we are actually left with nothing to start from. No guidance. No tradition. Just fairytale goals that leave us terrified of 'settling.'

Consequently, we are also incapable of really sinking our teeth into any enterprise. Divorce rates are higher than ever. Many view serious relationships as a hindrance to their careers or to their traveling or to their 'finding themsleves.'

As a society, we have collectively thrown our traditions to the wind. We view taking care of our aging parents as an imposition. Children just get in the way of pursuing our personal goals. Living near our families might inhibit our opportunities. 

We have thrown away our homes.

And, consequently, we find ourselves further and further away from each other, speeding apart. We keep repeating that we are autonomous, that we don't need other people, that living our dreams will make us happy. 

But, it doesn't.

And, thus, we are left homeless in the midst of our luxury.

In The Brothers Karamazov, the Elder Zosima comments:

The world has proclaimed freedom, especially of late, but what do we see in this freedom of theirs: only slavery and suicide! For the world says, 'You have needs, therefore satisfy them, for you have the same rights as the noblest and richest men. Do not be afraid to satisfy them, but even increase them'--this is the current teaching of the world. And in this they see freedom. But what comes of the right to increase one's needs? For the rich, isolation and spiritual suicide; for the poor, envy and murder....