Showing posts with label recycled. Show all posts
Showing posts with label recycled. Show all posts

Saturday, April 24, 2010

The Garage Sale Trail

According to the holy scriptures of the ABS, Australians generate 3.2 million tonnes of solid waste which is 1,629 kilograms of waste per person - that's a lot of junk in mother nature's trunk!

So give the fine lady a hand by not buying new crap and instead picking-up some pre-loved bargains garage sale style.

As part of the Bondi Sizzle Community Festival my good buddy Ben is curating a suburb-wide garage sale called the Garage Sale Trail.

If you (or one of your mates) lives in Bondi, be one of the first 50 to register your sale and get yourself a little bag of goodies. The garage sale with the best name, spunkiest looking host, or coolest outfit will be judged by a celebrity panel and get even better prizes.

Not everyone can live in Bondi, but you can head on over to pick-up some goodies. Think bikes, surfboards, clothes, books, music and mucho mas stuff left over from flighty backpackers and the razzledazzlerati! A map of the sales will be releasesed a few days before the sale on Sunday May 9.

Get along!

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Ever been guilted into liking something because its the 'right' thing to do?


Like when a little kid draws you a picture and its crap, and the last thing you want to do is jeopardise legitimate bill-reminding space on th fridge with stick figures? Yeah well some goes with enviro stuff, and I'm sure in any 'cause space' where people are pouring their guts into stuff which is beautiful in theory but in practice is well...shall we say, a little disappointing.

I just went to an eco fashion thing. And I LOVE what this North Shore middle-class warrior is trying to achieve, but after the show I was left wondering 'is this all there is?'.

Kezza-Anne Kennerly was there, as was that financial Ross guy, and a swagger of desperate housewifesque ladies whose children undoubtedly included the little boy modeling the clothes - far from being sexy, the poor year twelver looked like he was in desperate need of a hug, a sense of humour and a half-wedgie.

The clothes were ok, apparently the shoes were amazing. Not that I would know, as the cat walk wasn't raised and one of the models decidedly distracted from the shoes by drawing attention to her knees which were drawn higher and higher each step as though she was avoiding an exploding magnum-sized bottle of bubs skittling across the ground and threatening to bite her calves.

There was one dress I loved - recycled mohair, plain black above the knee, high waisted and finished with a voluptuous collar and set by large houndstooth patterning in bold purple, yellow and electric blue. You could see how much love had gone into the detail, beautiful lines, immaculate seams - I'm desperate to try on that dress, but shudder at the thought I could not do justice to something so wonderfully made, and fear feeling shitter a person for the my inadequacies in not doing it justice.

But there was only one. Unfortunately, which seems often the case in Sydney; sustainable, vintage and recycled fashion is treated almost like a charity case. As if by wearing it you sacrifice style for the feeling of doing the right thing - guilt trip, particularly on the North Shore.

But this is only a half truth. Had the show have been better produced, taken place in Surry Hills/Darlinghurst/Paddington and not been filled by 40 somethings and modeled by kids on the brink of puberty, I reckon it would have been judged not by it's honourable intentions, but instead on merit.

After a couple of bubblies, I raved the show to a St Leonards blond, extolling the usual pro-green diatribe, but somehow feel cheated and a fake. It took Kezza's husband to set things straight. She was admiring the 'greenness' of the clothes and the designer's vision when he piped-up "Kerry-Anne, your wardrobe alone probably contributes to half of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions and supports the majority of sweatshops in Asia" - oh and how we all laughed.

Kerry-Anne, you were the star of the green fashion show, and I still feel guilty that I didn't quite like it.