As you know, I recently participated in a clothing swap at the Black Box Collective, which is in the West Central neighborhood, near the Parramore community, which also happens to be where I work.
I went to the clothes swap with the following: Three pairs of jeans, a leather Kenneth Cole jacket that was a weird color and boxy and I never wore it, a polyester suit, two skirts, a tank top, and a dress. I didn’t put all of it out on the pile, I don’t know why. I wasn’t really ready to part with the dress and there wasn’t anyone else there that it would have suited, and I guess I jsut wasn’t ready to let it go. One of the skirts in my bag I kept because I keep hoping I will find a top to wear with it, but I’ve had it fifteen years and worn it only once, so I probably should have passed it on.
I went there by myself, though, and I didn’t know anyone, so I felt conspicuous and didn’t want to be rifling around in my bag and then not putting stuff out on the tables, so I just put some stuff out and then didn’t go back into my bag. Dumb, I know. Anyhow, all told, I gave the leather jacket, the suit, and three pairs of pants. I should have also put out one of the skirts and the tank top, but oh well.
It was a rally nice vibe they had going, there was an acoustic guitarist playing her own original music and singing, and I really liked both her voice and her music. I don’t remember her name, so if anyone reading this knows her name, I’ll gladly give credit. I’d make a crummy reporter, I guess. Here’s a picture of her:
"All in favor of a new world, say I"
Yes, I know there is a lot of uninteresting background in the picture. I need to learn more about cropping and editing photos, but I usually do it in Paint and I just can’t seem to make it happen this morning. It’s like, rilly rilly giant, and I can’t crop out the part I want because even that doesn’t fit on the screen, and it won’t let me zoom out. I might be retarded. Nonetheless, there was music and camaraderie. I learned that they were planning on sending the leftover clothes to India, and since you know and I know that dumping excess textiles in poverty stricken areas is not always as helpful over the long term as we think it might be, I started asking around about who was in charge and had made this decision. I got to meet a few nice people that way, including Sheena, who gave me props because my Daddy is a Union man. While Sheena and I talked about how the problem of workers not being able to afford the products of their labor exists right here in this neighborhood (moreso even than the textile industry in India, for comparison), an apparently homeless man walked in off the street. He rather nervously approached where we were standing and asked if all the clothes were girl clothes. It felt good to direct him to where some men’s clothes were and convey a feeling of welcome.
I did some of my own browsing and scored a yellow message tee with a bird
embroidered on it that goes with my picnic shoes, a J Crew skirt for work, a short demin skit for kicking around in (that just so happens to be from Abercrombie and Fitch, no less), and this crazy plaid dress thing. It will look awesome with tights and ankle boots this fall.
When I did get to talk to one of the organizers, Alex, she heard me out about how our overconsumption of textiles leads to the depression of prices for all textile related trades and industries, if not their outright destruction, in the places where our excess ends up. She informed me that they had a specific contact in India to whom they were sending the clothes, but that shipping was pretty pricey and they only planned to ship a few boxes. This is where I piped up with the needs of families right in that very community, some of whom I work with, that can’t always clothe their children the way they would like to. The school I work in has a free clothes closet for kids to shop in, no questions asked, and I asked Alex if maybe I could have some of the leftovers. She was super pleased because the Black Box Collective wants to participate in and be part of the community it’s housed in, and this is one way they can do that.
I agreed to meet Sheena the following day to bag up what I thought the kids could use and would like, and one of my co-workers met me there. We spent an hour helping ourselves to the goods and also folding, bagging, and moving all the rest of it. That day, I found a pair of grey skinny jeans with ankle zips, which was super awesome because I’d wanted some last fall and had been browsing the internet in search of the right ones. So it was cool that I found some for FREE–well, I paid in labor.
All told, it was a super positive experience. I met some great people, got some “new” clothes, and did a good deed for my kids. I also talked to some activists about the effects of our voracious appetite for clothes and, in a sense, educated them a little about something they hadn’t considered.
