Sunday, May 10, 2009

Whole Earth Festival

This past weekend, I attended the Whole Earth Festival on our campus. The mission statement of the Whole Earth Festival (from the website) is: “to envision and create a community driven festival of education, music, and art. … We want to develop a conscious community that will go out into the world after the festival and encourage the values that we hold dear. We are all equal participants in the conscious creation that is the Whole Earth Festival.” In order to cultivate this kind of environment, there are a variety of food booths; instead of using disposable utensils, they encourage the use of multi-use utensils and have a receptacle where the dishes can be washed. There are also many different kinds of clothing and accessory booths, which are among my favorite parts of the festival.




This particular booth (pictured left) sold clothing made of recycled silk. The clothing (scarves, tops, and full-length dresses) ranged from $15-75, depending on the item of clothing. Silk is a treasured commodity, and clothing made of real silk is usually expensive. By recycling silk, quality clothing can be made at a cheaper price. This concept of reusing expensive material for cheaper prices is shown through the trickle down theory, “where fashions are supposed to trickle down from the higher classes to the lower classes” (Kawamura 19). Not only are the fashions trickling down, but so is the material being used. By the production and consumption of clothes made from reused silk, it is a way of being not only a green consumer, but a smart one as well.


Courtney Lorca
Blog #1


Sources:


1. wef.ucdavis.edu - Whole Earth Festival website

2. Fashion-ology: An Introduction to Fashion Studies by Yuniya Kawamura

No comments: