13 November 2009

Oh, the Angst!

Greetings,

We were shopping last week, a friend and I, when we happened to go into one of those Designer Discount places. You know the ones, where they sell off all of last season's stock that has been left, languishing on the hangers, in stores around the state. The majority of these make you wonder what possessed the buyers to order so many teensy sizes of such shockers.

Have you ever wondered why it is that when designers can design fabric patterns that are pretty, so many opt for ugly?

The racks were filled with shirts and skirts and pants and shorts in colours that clashed, colours that made even the healthiest person look sallow and sick, colours that made us shake our heads in dismay.

Ugh!

And the prices they were asking for these horrors ...

These Label clothes are always over-priced to begin with ... I mean, who in his/her right mind would honestly pay $100+ for a t-shirt? Especially one made in Portugal or one of those other countries where the poor workers are paid a pittance. Just think for a moment about the profit these clothing companies must rake in.

Staggering.

Clothing retailers apparently work on mark-ups that start at 43% and regularly rise to 67+%, but empirical evidence would suggest that this is not quite accurate, since mark-downs of 80% in some of the stores my friend and I visited, meant that clothes -- just everyday shirts and jeans, nothing flash -- were "being sacrificed" at prices around the $129 mark ... and that was with 80% off the original price!

Remember the days when you made your own clothes?

No?

It seems to be a lost art, doesn't it?

Once upon a time, boys and girls, people used to huddle over huge books of dress patterns, then, clutching their prize in one hand, would head off to the fabric section of the department store to buy material, cotton, zippers, buttons etc.

Then it was home to lay out the pattern, make any adjustments, and then the really exciting part ... pinning the pattern to the material and then picking up the scissors for that first cut.

Sitting at the sewing machine was always a great time as you imagined what the finished product would look like; you saw yourself at whatever function it was you were making the garment for and heard all the compliments as people oohed and aahed over your creation.

And when you made your own clothes, you could be creative ... changing the cut of the neckline here, shortening the sleeves there, adding a frill or a flounce or (as was more likely the case for me) removing a frill or a flounce to make a more tailored garment.

There was a sense of accomplishment that you just don't get when you spend 10 minutes grabbing a ready-made dress off the rack and paying for it.

But it seems we're all too busy now to sit for a couple of days making our own clothes, which is a shame for lots of reasons ... We're losing valuable skills -- how many little girls these days learn how to knit or sew? We're handing control of what we wear to multi-national companies and we're contributing to exploitation of people around the world.

I'm going to rain on the parade here and mention that this week's Little Something Extra has some disturbing articles ... (If you've bought an embroidered pink chiffon gown recently, you might not enjoy wearing it as much after reading this!)

What also rained on our parade while we were shopping were the signs in one particular shop. These signs weren't hand-printed, which may have been excusable. (No, on second thoughts, nothing could excuse this!) They were all printed out professionally from the company's Head Office.

There were a number of tables and racks, all bearing signs describing the savings that could be made at each one, and I include here a short selection for your delectation. (I just wish I'd had a camera).

"Men's shoe's" proclaimed the first -- getting it half right, as did the second, "Children's top's." The third outdid the others with a hat-trick: "Womans' skirt's."

Sigh ... why do so many people find the apostrophe so difficult?

It's very simple really, and since it's silly to reinvent the wheel, I'll just direct you to the relevant pages:

Using the apostrophe to indicate ownership and omission.

Using the apostrophe with letters and numbers

And sign up for your Apostrophe FAQ  

Not forgetting those catapostrophes we all love to hate 

This week's quiz:

What sort of a tailor would you make? Match up these sewing terms ...

baste, worsted, chambray, gimp, dolly, bespoke, twill, cummerbund, gorge, voile

1. broad waist sash, usually pleated, which is often worn with black tie and tuxedo

2. one of the basic weave structures in which the filling threads are woven over and under two or more warp yarns, producing a characteristic diagonal pattern

3. the seam formed at the point where the lapel meets the collar of a jacket or coat

4. to loosely assemble garment first fitting

5. thin, semi transparent cotton, woollen or silken material used in the making of shirts

6. lightweight cloth made of long staple combed woollen yarn

7. a garment that's custom-made from scratch to a customer's specific measurements and requirements

8. a flat trimming of silk, wool, or other cord, sometimes stiffened with wire, for garments, curtains

9. plain weave lightweight cotton fabric primarily used for shirts

10. fabric covered wooden structure used in tailoring as base for pressing

And a question we looked at some time ago when we were chatting about violas ...

Q: What's the difference between a dressmaker and a violist?

A: A dressmaker tucks up frills and ...

Last week's quiz:

Sorry I kept you on your toes last week by leaving out one of the terms. It was the first one ...

denier, grommet, Dutch oven, guy rope, berth, anti-wicking, fly, mummy bag, tarp and bivouac!

1. temporary encampment, also refers to a one-person tent - BIVOUAC (And if you're camping Down Under, this is also known as a swag ... as in "Once a jolly swagman ...")

2. used to securely attach the tent to the ground - GUY ROPE

3. a material (thread, webbing, or fabric) designed or treated to be water repellent - ANTI-WICKING

4. water-resistant, removable tent cover, which is spaced above and away from the tent to protect against the wind, rain, and condensation - FLY

5. metal eyelet used to reinforce holes, eg in the groundsheet where the tent pegs are pushed through - GROMMET

6. relatively large, cast-iron pot or chamber with a tight-fitting lid used for cooking over the coals - DUTCH OVEN

7. a large sheet of waterproof or water-repellent canvas, polyethylene, plastic (including PVC), and even cloth, usually with grommets at each corner and along each outer edge - TARP

8. term used to indicate the size or number of filaments or yarn; the higher the number, the heavier the yarn, the lower the number, the finer or sheerer the yarn - DENIER

9. number of people a tent can sleep - BERTH

10. a hooded sleeping bag, which is tapered at both ends reducing air space within the bag and thereby conserving body heat - MUMMY BAG

Here's a story about a tailor ...

John was a poor tailor whose shop was next door to a very upscale French restaurant. Every day at lunch time, John would go out the back of his shop and eat his home-made sandwiches while smelling the wonderful odours coming from the restaurant's kitchen.

One day, he was surprised to receive an invoice from the restaurant for 'enjoyment of food'. So he went to the restaurant to point out that he had not bought anything from them. The manager said, "You're enjoying our food, so you should pay us for it."

John refused to pay and the restaurant sued him. At the hearing, the judge asked the restaurant to present their side of the case. The manager said, "Every day, this man comes and sits outside our kitchen and smells our food while eating his. It is clear that we are providing added value to his poor food and we deserve to be compensated for it."

The judge turned to John and said, "What do you have to say to that?"

John didn't say anything but stuck his hand in his pocket and rattled the few coins he had inside.

The judge asked him, "What's the meaning of that?"

John replied, "I'm paying for the smell of his food with the sound of my money."

A Little Something Extra

These articles might prompt you to investigate further and write a letter to your local paper about this issue, or maybe you could do some research and write a full article. This topic also provides a rivetting plot for a novel ...

2006 Times Online article about child labour in clothing sweatshops ... "The international fashion industry’s dirty secret is hidden in hundreds of cramped, dusty workshops on the outskirts of Delhi where an estimated 100,000 children work up to 14 hours a day." Source

2007 Guardian article about child labour "According to one estimate, more than 20 per cent of India's economy is dependent on children, the equivalent of 55 million youngsters under 14." Source

2008 UNICEF report that shows, "An estimated 158 million children aged 5-14 are engaged in child labour - one in six children in the world. Millions of children are engaged in hazardous situations or conditions, such as working in mines, working with chemicals and pesticides in agriculture or working with dangerous machinery. They are everywhere but invisible, toiling as domestic servants in homes, labouring behind the walls of workshops, hidden from view in plantations." Source

2009 UNICEF resources about child labour here

Word of the week: Woof (n) yarn carried by the shuttle and interlacing at right angles with the warp in woven cloth; also the yarn used for the weft. (And you thought it had something to do with dogs!)

A woof, by another name is a weft, and the warp (since you asked) is "the set of yarns placed lengthwise in the loom, crossed by and interlaced with the weft, and forming the lengthwise threads in a woven fabric."

Glad we've got that sorted!

Oxymoron of the week: modern fashion

And a Latin phrase for those times when you're feeling a bit "everybody-hates-me-nobody-loves-me-poor-me"