Style and Self Care: Bribing Ourselves with Back-to-school Yoga Swag-- Basic Supplies

A very important part of back-to-school season for me is Treats. As in, Bribes. Treatbribes. For myself.

To put in it in more grown-person speak, I find it easier to do unpleasant things (like sending EIGHT HOURS worth of emails) if I offer myself some incentives. A big part of this program is currently The West Wing and Ben and Jerry's Banana Peanut Butter Frozen Yogurt, but I'm looking to diversify my self-bribing options. On the list of Rejunvenatory Activities: cook something yummy, take some photos, practice yoga.

I really love what Ros has to say in her at-home yoga tips about making yoga a precious indulgence in daily life. I was struck by her suggestion to make yoga special by indulging in a nice lotion, a beautifully curated practicing space (even it's just between the bed and the wall) or special clothing. Of course, you can practice yoga anywhere and with anything-- the body is all you need-- but it's always a relief to be reassured that yoga as a philosophy is not fundamentally austere-- it's about celebrating the body as an extension of the self!

In the sprit of self-care and bribery, I asked Ros, along with another of my very favorite yogis, Minnesota-based yoga instructor Lisa Bevevino, to share the yoga swag that enriches their practice, and then added a few of my own faves. The products I feature here are all hand-made or ethically-made when possible-- Etsy is a rad source for yoga treats!

Here's what we love:

Ros: A Jade yoga mat. It's made of natural rubber, which has a texture that reminds me of sharkskin- nice and grippy! Plus, the natural rubber is a renewable resource, the mats contain no PVC and Jade plants a tree for every mat sold. It's fairly expensive (over $60), and it certainly wasn't my first mat, in the era when I was just starting to go to classes, but I'm so glad I finally made the investment.

Anna adds: Second on the Jade mat. I have very sweaty hands and normally need towels under my palms during a down dog, but not with Jade mats. They also seem incredibly durable-- I've seen years-old mats with little signs of wear-- and they are made in PA!

Ros: One cork block, which I like because it's heavy and dense without being hard or poke-y.

Anna adds: I use this in place of meditation cushion, in a pinch.

Ros: One blanket, which I use in savasana, for meditation, and for hanumanasana (on the rare occasion I feel like doing the splits at home).

Anna adds: Splits. You have got to be kidding me. No.

Ros: One strap, which I'm mainly using in back-bends right now.

Anna adds: I am far less bendy than Ros, so I use a strap a lot more often-- especially for hip and hamstring stretches. This one, handmade in CA, doubles as a carrying strap for your mat!.

Ros: One meditation cushion, which I use to elevate my seat in meditation.

Anna adds: Having butt support with a cushion like this makes sitting in meditation feel so much better for me! I like handmade buckwheat pillows like this, because you can add or remove stuff to adjust the height.

Ros: One lavender eye pillow, which my grandmother gave me years ago.

Anna adds: As for smelly things, I also really like Aura Cacia Panic Button essential oil blend. It has lavender in it, and also neroli which is kind of like orange? I put some on my wrists and behind my ears before I practice.

Ros: I've also used Jivamukti lavender lotion and China Gel in class, and would love to keep them at home. The china gel is fantastic- it's an icy-hot gel that you can apply to your low back or shoulders before practice, and helps to keep those muscles warm and loose. The lavender lotion just smells lovely and comforting. :)

Anna adds: When I have to stay out in The World after a yoga class (and therefor can't go home to shower) I have been enjoying Leap Organics body powder --which is basically like Gold Bond for hippies--to cut sweatiness It's talc-free (better for your lungs) and smells like lemongrass, but it still has that tingly feeling.

Ros: I also like to have eucalyptus oil, lavender oil and tea tree oil around. The latter two can both be mixed into a spray bottle with a 3:1 mixture of water and white vinegar for a mat-cleaning solution, plus they're both antiseptic. The eucalyptus oil I just find soothing.

Anna: Ros has been reminding me to do crucial things like CLEAN YOGA MAT for more than a decade now. She's the best, and I'm a lucky lady. Stay tuned next week for our recommendations re: Yoga clothing! Happy Weekend! May all beings bribe themselves within reason!

Style: When US-Made Goods Aren't Ethical: The Prison Labor Hipster Button-Down

Ya'll, I was really excited to find out out about Made Collection, a site that curates US-made (and delightfully hipstery) goods under a single online storefront. There are plenty of great brands making good-looking clothing in ethical ways, but I've found it hard, in the past, to locate them.

I was on the hunt yesterday for a few back-to-school pieces (things I can teach in that aren't uncomfy), when I came across the Hickory Shirt by Oregon Correction Enterprises. It's basically my dream shirt. I'm bonkers for railroad stripes (I WAS BORN THIS WAY). It comes in a comfy men's size Small. It's made in the US. And it's $36. Wait. What? Because of their relatively complicated construction, US-made button-down shirts usually cost at least twice that.

Maybe you saw this coming before I did: the shirt is made by prison laborers.  Hence the brand name. Hence the low price tag. Just to offer a frame of reference, prisoners "working" in the US are paid a minimum of wage of 23 cents per hour. And a maximum of $1.15. 

Oregon Correction Enterprises "employs" incarcerated people to manufacture a variety of products, including this shirt, which is obviously designed to adhere to hipster aesthetic I love so much. Even weirder is the label reading "Prsn Blu", which I guess is supposed to be funny?

While some argue that "putting prisoners to work makes prisons safer", I'm not interested in buying goods made by captives, regardless of the conditions of their captivity. The Prison Policy Center provides a sobering fact sheet about prison labor in the US.

This was the reminder I needed that US made and ethically made are not truly synonymous.  As marketers identify that hipsters like me will pay a premium for ethically-manufactured products, I'm sure plenty of brands will turn to prison labor, and with much less transparency than the "Prsn Blues" label affords.

The question of how to respond as a consumer to issues like this, beyond demanding more information from reluctant companies, is unclear to me. It certainly damages the ethos of Made Collection as well-- their connection to prison labor makes it clear that profiting from the image of US-made branding is a much greater priority than adhering to their "ethical" mission.  Just like greenwashing, this is bullshit. It's an abuse of human rights, it's anti-union and it's dishonest to consumers. What a timely Labor Day eye-opener.

Best Ever: Back to School Haircut Edition

It's the first week of school, ya'll. And that's... a thing that is happening.  I love meeting my new students, love sharing ideas about writing and reading, love my colleagues. But I love summer too. I love my arts and crafts. I love the farmer's market. And I love sleep.

I realized today that Wednesday marked my 23rd First Day of School. As a kid, that meant my best friend Rachel and I got to go to lunch at Red Lobster and order virgin strawberry daiquiris and cheddar bay biscuits and crab alfredo and my mom gave us each a new chapter book. Often we wore matching outfits on this occasion.

These days, I've got my own, grown-person first day of school tricks up my sleeve:

1. When walking to class, fire up Rihanna's seminal album Good Girl Gone Bad. Put the title song on repeat.
2. Eat whatever I want while I get adjusted to a crazy new schedule (two cheeseburgers in one week!).
3. New shoes.
4. New colorful pens and new notebooks.
5. New haircut.

So yesterday, I headed over to my favorite salon, Fiddleheads.

 I like Fiddleheads because it is lovely and airy and full of light, for sure.

And because it's located in my favorite DC neighborhood, beautiful Bloomingdale.

But I'm most excited by the fact that they employ cool people who cut hair like real makers. They approach the task with a sense of purpose, as a way of creating something cool in the world. Erica and I had an awesome time talking about blogs and crafty things and aesthetics and how fun it is to make things with our hands. She even told me about how she bartered a haircut for some beautiful jewelry from La Reunion.  Jealous.

I left thinking about how Makerness, as a category, can apply to anyone, so long as they approach it with care, attention and pride. If the details matter beyond the details themselves. There's a great TED called "We Are All Makers".  It's a great thing to think about at the beginning of a new school year.

Madesmith's great article on branding points out that emotional value is a huge part of how we decide to spend money. Emotional value is also what means that any of us, in anything that we do, can be makers.

I love the atmosphere at Fiddleheads. I love, love, love my haircut. But it's the Makerness of the place that I'm most excited about-- the freshness and possibility that it makes me feel The idea that everything is an act of creation, no matter how small. Even the ritual of crab alfredo and chapter books. Even grading a paper. Even walking to class.

Now that's a good way to start the school year.

A Few Things I'm Excited About (Beach Week Edition): corn cakes, bonfire perfume, donated ideas, japanese persimmon cloth and a plea for well-cooked babies!

Olo Fragrance's new scent, Palo Santo, is the number one Things I Would Like to Smell today. I do not much like flowery stuff (rose is a notable exception), so this woody blend really appeals.  I found it at the very hip Accident and Artifact in SF. I also love Olo's Victory Wolf, which really does smells like someone's hair after a night around a bonfire. Stop laughing at me.

I'm impressed: rather than donating finite goods, Toyota donated their efficiency system to a Harlem soup kitchen. The resulting changes allowed the charity to help a great many more people. I love the idea of donating ideas rather than materials. It feels less like charity and more like cooperation.

I made these corn cakes for dinner last night and now we can't stop brainstorming different ways to eat them. Current thoughts: with caviar and creme fraiche, with ricotta, maple syrup and berries, with crumbled bacon mixed into the batter (duh).

Fabric obsession: Japenese Kakishubu, dyed with fermented persimmon juice. According to Hickorees, it's antibacterial? Someone please convince to me that I do not have the time or skill to attempt this on my own.

File under Not Surprised: a new peer-reviewed study has established substantive linkage between induced or augmented labor (often through i.v pitocin) and the instance of autism. My doctor parents point out that we really don't understand how the stronger contractions caused by pitocin affect the amount of oxygen baby receives, so this makes intuitive sense. Obviously more research is needed, but this is worth a lot more investigation than the ass-hatted (and failed) attempts to connect autism to vaccines (see jennymccarthybodycount.com). Also worth a read: Jodi the Doula's discussion of why even "natural" induction is usually a bad idea, and we should just let babies cook as long as they want.

Consumership and Style: Lifetime Brands: Everlane (and my favorite shirt)

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Children, it is a red-letter day for t-shirts. Everlane has restocked one of my absolute favorites in the world, the Ryan, with an updated fabric and cut. Soft and floaty and lovely! Twenty-five bucks! Made in LA! I am so excited I cannot.

I've had to wait months get my hands on this shirt because Everlane purposely under-manufactures, a practice they explain thusly on their tumblr:

In traditional retail, brands always overbuy. They produce more inventory than they need, knowing 30 percent of it will be put on sale. These sales have been so effective, that brands now create    cheaper versions of full-price products to sell alongside the legitimate sale items. In other words, if you buy something on sale, it could be an original or something created at a lower quality to simulate a sale item. The entire ecosystem is borderline deceptive.

Our approach is simpler: we underbuy. That means, we predict what we’ll sell, and we buy a little less. Our goal is to never have overstock and never have sales. The tradeoff is that we often buy too little. (We’re getting better over time, but it’s a bit of an art.) As Everlane grows, and we accumulate historical data, we’ll become better at these predictions. But we won’t change our approach. We will always underbuy so that we can keep things simple and avoid the games. It’s a long term decision we’ve made that we hope you support.

This indeed makes sense to me. Almost all the stores that I shopped at in Honduras carried overstock goods from US manufacturers who exported their undesirable surplus. It was a visual reminder of the way that some people are expected to subsist on the 'leftovers' of the others.

As I've said before, I'm on the lookout right now for lifetime brands: manufacturers that I can comfortably support with my money and would like to patronize again and again. All of the products I've purchased from Everlane fit the bill so far: they are well designed, durable and really good looking. The company does not manufacture ALL of their goods in the US, but they brand themselves based on a policy of "radical transparency": they choose carefully (and document) their factories, materials and cost breakdowns.

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I found out about Everlane in December when I was hunting for a Very Special Tie to give my bestie, Jordy. I wanted something super rad and full of good vibes that he could wear to his dissertation defense and job interviews. I wanted something hipster-cool and US made, but I couldn't afford anything from The Hillside. Check out this blue selvedge tie, made in NYC, that I found for Jordy through Everlane!  See how rad he looks? See the look of triumph on his face? He passed! YOU ARE SO WELCOME, BRO!

Because of Everlane's manufacturing structure, that tie has come and gone. It's not even on the website anymore. Maybe it will be back this winter. Maybe not. Now I've got my eye on this silk blouse in a fall-y mustard color:

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Like other products I've mentioned, the prices at Everlane are comparable to (or sometimes lower than) prices at mall stores like J. Crew. The cotton tee shirts are an especially good deal at fifteen bucks a pop (they are crazy soft and also made in LA). Everlane keeps prices low by selling only through their website-- no retail, even a pop-up stores.

Plus, the company recently launched a really cool project called Everlane Explores China, sending a camera crew to Donguaan and Shenzhen (the factory city made famous by Mike Daisy's controversial Apple expose) to document the factories they use. The photos are beautiful and compelling, but because Everlane controls the footage that we see, I wouldn't call it totally transparent. Still, it's a great start.

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Ideally, I would really like for Everlane to take things a step further and disclose the wage breakdowns in all the factories they use. Unlikely, to be sure, but I can dream. 

As it is, I feel better about buying internationally manufactured goods from Everlane than from anywhere else-- they are hitting the sweet spot between great style, reasonable social responsibility and the value-added proposition of good-karma products. Psychically, that makes their silk blouse just about as light on the shoulders as any new, internationally made garment gets.

A Few Things I'm Excited About: cobbler, Sorkin, sissy bounce, NC-made clothing, women's health and a little self promotion

This cobbler. I made it this weekend with blackberries as well as peaches and the topping is perfect. Nothing has ever tasted so much like Bisquick that not was not actually made with Bisquick. To my mind, that is a very good thing.

HBO's 'The Newsroom'. Like many of my favorite shows, it took me a hot second to get into the storylines and characters. Now I'm on a roll. Such a fascinating and optimistic look into what the news is, with some great ideas about what the news could be. Also, Aaron Sorkin's dialogue.

Centennial Trading Company is making beautiful menswear in North Carolina. I want to wear it all, but I fear the jeans would not work with my butt. They've got a Kickstarter going right now, with some great deals on forthcoming products. I would work the shit out of that popover with a belt.

This article on The Toast about being a pro-choice doula. The reasoning in this article has some flaws, but her central argument-- that being a doula represents body autonomy in the same way that abortion rights does-- is right on. For the record, practicing as a doula has helped me become almost totally comfortable with abortion as medical procedure and a moral issue.

I launched my photography website today. I'd like people to pay me a small amount of money to take their picture. Tell your friends!

Big Freedia Queen Diva. Don't ask me what sissy bounce is-- just listen.

Consumership and style: Buying US-made clothing and doing my best

I've been thinking a lot about consumership. I make money. I spend money. I stress out about who that money supports and where it goes. I feel like an asshole. I like having nice things.

In the past year, mostly through the mentorship of some awesome friends, I've been trying to change the way that I buy things.  In particular, I've tried to focus on keeping my spending within the US economy for three reasons:

• US-made goods look more rad and last longer
• I can be sure that US-made goods are not made by children (whether the workers earn an actual living wage is another story).
• Buying things from small producers means that more of the money goes to the people doing the work, and less goes to large corporations. Happy to talk more later about why I dislike corporations in general.

Did I mention that US-made goods are also very rad? Let's do some comparison shopping.  I've put together two pinboards, each featuring six pieces of clothing that I like to wear during the summer: t-shirt, leather sandals, denim shorts, canvas tote, sundress, and a chambray button down. Hipster alert. Sorry about it.

The first pinboard is comprised of mall clothes-- specifically J. Crew and Madewell, whose goods I tend to love, and who manufacture the lion's share of their products outside of the US, often in developing countries with relaxed labor laws.

Madewell Linen V-Neck Tee $40, J. Crew Pilar Sandals $118, Madewell Tailored Shorts $60, 

Madewell Double-Handle Tote $88, Madewell Striped Silk Sundress $148, Madwell Perfect Chambray Shirt, $70

The second pinboard is comprised of small American brands-- that means that both the design and the manufacture of the items happens in the US, under the purview of US labor laws which are kind of good sometimes.

Jungmaven Women's Short Sleeve $29, Everlane Women's Summer Sandal $105, Bridge and Burn Audrey Shorts $88
Joshu+Vela Essential Tote $130, Bridge and Burn April Dress $99, O'Harrow Clothiers Classic Chambray Shirt $95

I'm actually kind of startled by how much I prefer the American-made pinboard. The textiles look richer, the cuts look more flattering, the colors more subtle. I want all of it. At present, I can afford none of it. That's cool I guess.

The only item that I own from either pinboard is the Bridge and Burn April Dress, purchased with birthday money at Dearhearts in Durham. It it the perfect, perfect sundress. What's more, the women who own the shop spent 15 minutes with me comparing fabrics, re-tying the straps, checking the way it fit my butt (MOST IMPORTANT), etc. I left with a different size than I thought I would thanks to their  close attention, and I feel great about how I look in it. (Plus they popped a bottle of prosecco and poured glasses all around, including for all the people in the shop browsing who bought nothing, so, bonus).

Ok. So. What if I were to buy everything on both pinboards? I mean, I could never, but what if?

The difference in total between the mall-store group and american-made group is $22. That's it. I would pay a twenty-two dollar premium for more-ethical manufacturing AND better quality. Especially if those items lasted longer and fit more my sense of style more closely.

BUT! Here's the rub: by the end of the summer, almost every item on the mall-store pinboard will go on sale, in some cases for as much as fifty percent off. The prices of the US-made pinboard are unlikely to budge (although I have seen online sales on the Bridge and Burn site, and through other online boutiques that carry US-made brands). These markdown makes a huge price difference-- especially for those of us who are used to buying all of our clothing on sale at the end of the season. All told, if you shop sales, the US-made goods cost closer to 1.5x the price of the mall goods.

So-- what to do? Right now I've settled on this strategy: 

• Buy fewer things, less frequently.
• Keep things nice longer (that means learning how to care for my belongings, which is honestly new to me). This is easiest to do when I really love something in the first place, and don't want to part with it.
• Only buy items for which I've identified a specific need/ use. No duplicates. A lot of times I'll try to wait to buy something until I've found myself in several prior situations where I would have used/worn it if I had it.
• Be cool with making compromises. Case in point: in May I had a last-minute job interview and no interview clothes. You better believe I hauled ass to J. Crew and bought what I needed. Hopefully I'll be able to wear that outfit to job interviews for years to come. It makes my butt look really great.

Listen. There's no way to talk about this without getting on a soapbox. I'm ok with that. I'm doing my best and I'm a nice person. I'm especially interested to see how these priorities will change as my life changes-- having kids, for example, tends to really alter the way a person thinks about consumership/their priorities in general.

It's important to note that these are lucky problems to have, in a lot of ways. It is a HUGE privilege to be able to "shop" for clothing-- not just to buy whatever is  cheapest.  I exist in that place of privilege.

Choice is part of my experience, and it's a choice shaped not just by visual aesthetics, but by a complex web of ethical-identity-group/not group considerations that is very difficult to parse. The things I buy, for better or for worse, help shape my identity via how I look, how I view myself and how I participate in various economies. Understanding this is a big part of doing my best. I hope I'm on my way.