Consumerism · Eco-Chick

Browsing all posts tagged with consumerism

Stop and Think with Brett Dennen Before You Shop for Spring

Brett Dennen is my favorite artist of 2009 (so far); his lyrics speak to me about many things, including the beauty of life, appreciating each day, and retaining perspective on love. I’ve been listening to his three albums, “So Much More”, “Hope for the Hopeless” and his first, which is self-titled, on repeat for a month.

I really think he is the voice of this generation, of change, of everything I care about. Please listen. Brett is proof that art still matters (and maybe is one of the few things that does, or ever did).

I’ve been putting together some Spring fashion stories, and Brett’s songs, about consumerism, and how we connect to the rest of the world, are not only humorous, sad and point-making, but they’re damn catchy too. I hope you enjoy as much as I did! (The first video is funny, and Mandy Moore is in it. The second video made me cry though, so be forewarned!)

(This is why I prefer to buy from independent designers, who know the people who make their clothes, and know they don’t pollute the Earth in their production).

Read the lyrics for both songs After the Jump!

consumerism, Music, singer

Design Glut: It's Scrumdidilyumptious!

2 Comments

by Alicia Lubowski-Jahn · 03/03/09

Liz Kinnmark (right) and Kegan Fisher (left), Co-founders of Design Glut, wearing respectively earrings and a necklace from their Currency Collection

The delectable creations by Design Glut have much in common with the scrumptious confections conjured by Willy Wonka. One can almost imagine that the eggs cradled in Design Glut’s Egg Pants were laid by none other than Mr. Wonka’s golden geese. Still, it is less the designs themselves that bring us straight to the fictive Chocolate Factory of Roald Dahl’s story, than the behavior of all those children (four bad eggs and one good one) inside the candy factory. Design Glut begs the question, as an online personality quiz puts it, “Are you a Charlie, or a Veruca? Which “Willy Wonka” kid are you?” How we consume — sometimes more in tune with the melody of Veruca Salt (“I want the world. I want the whole world. I want to lock it all up in my pocket. It’s my bar of chocolate. Give it to me now.”) or the bottomless appetite of Augustus Gloop than the restraint of Charlie Bucket (“Only once a year, on his birthday, did Charlie Bucket ever get to taste a bit of chocolate.”) — is explored by Design Glut’s delightful morsels.

Eco-Chick.com: Your designs are extremely enticing. The definition of the ‘glut‘ is not far off from the ‘glutton.’ How does the pull of temptation (and the varied spectrum of desire) inform your design philosophy? When does tempting become toxic?

Liz Kinnmark: As a company, it’s our job to entice you. We need people to desire our products, in order to fulfill our desires, like paying rent! That’s the way the system works. So we, like every business, try to tempt you to consume our products. But unlike every business, we also have a lot of blue-sky ideas about changing the world for the better. I think tempting becomes toxic when businesses care only about selling and not about the long-term health of the system. In the long-term, your business won’t survive if you don’t take care of the consumers you sell to and the environment we all live in. I’m a big believer in socially-responsible capitalism.

Black Crude Necklace

EC: It’s fascinating how consumption is expressed in your products. You have highlighted several ways that we (over) consume materials — including our use of economic, dietary, and energy resources. Can you please comment on how the role of the consumer provides a point of view for your designs?

LK: Design is about creating objects for other people, for consumers, for the market. That’s where I draw the line between design and art. Art is about creating something because you want to create it, to express yourself. So by that definition, the role of the consumer is essential to any design. I think the design world often times tries to pretend that it’s not about commerce, that it’s about beauty and refined tastes and something much classier. We make fun of that. We embrace the fact that this is about consumerism. If you’re buying something because it makes you feel good or cool or whatever, fine. We all do it. Just have the decency to admit it. And think about who or what you’re supporting when you spend those dollars. You don’t need to give up consumerism, but you should consciously decide what to support.

Smoking Gun

EC: What are we craving through objects? Do you see the possibility of our society restraining the consumer diet or being satiated by a more nourishing kind of product?

LK: Everyone craves something different. I don’t see the appetite receding any time soon, but I do think people can be satiated by a more nourishing kind of product. With our jewelry, for example, I see it as feeding people’s appetite for fashion and yet slipping in a vitamin. You’ll look good wearing it, of course, but you just might start a conversation about important current events.

Kegan Fischer wearing World Links Brooch

EC: What is the educational mission behind the Design Glut webzine? What is the vision behind this design forum?

LK: Well, we stumbled right out of art school into trying to run a business. And it immediately became clear that school hadn’t prepared us for the business world. We ended up getting into all these crazy situations, like having pallets of merchandise delivered to our apartment, having to break them down on the street and then figure out where the hell we were going to store everything. We started talking with other entrepreneurs, and we realized we weren’t the only ones who had no idea what we were doing in the beginning! You learn by screwing up, and then getting up and dusting yourself off and trying again. Every start-up has these great stories about the trials and tribulations they’ve gone through. So we started collecting the stories and posting them to our website. We hope that they will inspire others to follow their own dreams. The central lesson, in my opinion, is that no one gets to the top because of their super-human abilities. They get there by working hard, not giving up, and a healthy dose of luck and coincidences along the way.

Slow Food Tray

EC: Tell me a little bit please about your creative collaboration. What brings the two of you (Liz and Kegan) together as designers?

LK: When we did our first show together, it was just because it logistically made sense. Neither of us had very much money or very many products, so we shared a space. And then halfway through the preparations, we looked at each other and were like, “Huh, I don’t usually like working with other people, but this is going really well!” We both work really, really hard. We both have a similar aesthetic. If you look at our personal artwork, it’s almost eerily similar, except Kegan works on a massive scale and I work on a tiny scale. But probably most importantly, we both have grandiose dreams. We convince each other that we can pull things off that, to everyone else, seems crazy and impossible. And then we do it.

gilded eggs in their Egg Pants beside Kegan Fisher

gilded eggs nestled in their Egg Pants beside Kegan Fisher

EC: What’s coming up for you in 2009? Next steps?

LK: Well, we’ve always got grand plans and new products in the works. We’re almost ready to launch one of them, so keep an eye out! Our next show will be ICFF (May 16-19, ’09). In the meantime, we’re really interested in continuing to grow the website. Readership has increased a lot recently; it’s very exciting. Right now we’re working on a redesign of the site. The look and feel will stay pretty much the same, but we’re bringing in more creative entrepreneurs to blog about their experiences. In celebration of the 1-year anniversary of our blog (July 2009) we’ll be holding a show with work from some of our favorite creatives that we’ve interviewed. I’m getting really excited about the play that can happen back-and-forth between the digital world and the physical world. For example, bringing a group of people, who share having their names listed on our website, together in a physical space. We’re also thinking about releasing a printed magazine. We’d like to approach designing a magazine from a product-design point of view; design it like an object which we want people to love and keep. We’d pull articles from our website which all fit a certain theme, and tie them closer together, elaborating on what the central message/lesson is. Eventually I’d love to make a book.

consumerism, design, Jewelry

5 Tips for Eco-Friendly Black Friday Shopping

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by Stephanie Rogers · 11/25/08

Black Friday is just days away, and even if you don’t plan on plunging headfirst into the insanity of mass consumerism, it does represent the ‘official’ start to the holiday shopping season. So, as you prepare to search for the perfect green gifts for friends, relatives and co-workers, don’t let the general chaos of the whole process stop you from being your usual eco-friendly self. Here are a few quick green holiday shopping tips to keep in mind.

Remember the three W’s – who, where and what, as in “Who made it? Where did it come from? What’s it made out of?” Just because you’re in a hurry to get your shopping over with doesn’t mean you should forget about important things like whether the item is fair trade and/or made locally, or if it’s made from sustainable materials.

Cut back on the madness with a Secret Santa system. Instead of buying a gift for every single friend, family member and colleague, why not do the Secret Santa thing instead? It cuts way back on the amount of gifts everyone has to buy, so you’ll save money, resources and be able to put more thought into each gift. Establish a spending limit, pick names out of a hat and you’re set for a much more relaxing December.

Don’t forget your reusable bags! It’s all too easy to walk out the door with them and come home from a holiday shopping spree with dozens of plastic bags. Reusable bags are a really easy way to be green during the holiday season. And as a matter of fact, they make a great gift as well, so why not pick up some extras while you’re out?

Hit up the online sales. Yes, it’s true that the items you buy have to get to you one way or another, but shippers like UPS are far more efficient than the average consumer and that UPS truck is headed to your street anyway. And, if you buy several items from the same online store, you save packaging. Lots of online retailers will have major sales this weekend, giving you plenty of selection and eliminating the need to drive all over the place looking for that perfect gift.

Just stay home on Black Friday. Participate in ‘Buy Nothing Day’ in protest against mindless consumption, or try your hand at making some homemade gifts. But, especially given the current economic climate, no one can blame you if you’ve just got to get a couple must-have gifts at the greatest discount possible. Lessen the impact by carpooling, and give a wide berth to anyone with a crazy look in their eyes and a death grip on the last $99 flat-screen TV.

Image via Seattle PI

consumerism, Holidays, Shopping

Top 10 Most Useless Items of Crapola

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by Olivia Zaleski · 03/25/08

Once upon a time, things were made to serve a purpose. Consider the light bulb, the compass, and the cardiac pacemaker. No doubt necessity was once the mother of invention.

Fast forward to the present. What’s happened? It seems that everywhere I go, I’m bombarded with completely useless and unnecessary stuff. Yesterday, someone tried to sell me a 14-inch pencil–the “Jumbo Jotter.” I’ll admit I was tempted, and I imagined myself sauntering into Monday’s 3:00 meeting, only to whip out my enormous pencil and start taking notes like it was just another day at the office. My colleagues would laugh, we’d all have a good chuckle, but then some persnickety associate would point out the obvious: I had wasted $9.95 and a tree in Paraguay for a D-list joke.

The problem with useless products is threefold. First, they squander natural resources (energy, raw materials, mineral deposits and infomercial star Anthony Sullivan’s precious time). Secondly, they clog up landfills and, thirdly, they throw us into a Samsara-like cycle of never ending consumption.

Take for example, the Toastmaster Electric Can Opener – Model TCO2 (white). Yes, of course this gadget could be a godsend for the arthritic and handicapped. For the rest of us, however, it’s just another gateway to misery.

1. Lift blade assembly.
2. Place can against positioning bar guide and metal wheel.
3. Press button until can opening process is complete.

We press the button and eat our spam with little worry. Then the tragedy sets in. A few weeks go by and a rubber tire forms around our recently slim midsection. A double chin appears. Is that arm flab? Manual can opening burns calories. The lack of physical activity has atrophied our muscles.

Hence useless gadget number two: the Sauna Belt (note this product was recently recalled for safety reasons). This girdle of a device claims to heat the belly, increasing body temperature, so to literally melt away excess pounds. As it happens, the only thing the Sauna Belt is really good for is repelling members of the opposite sex and scorching its clientele. Burned and fat, what are we to do? Sharper Image’s personal air conditioner provides comfort in times of distress. Just place the battery operated metal collar around your neck and you’ll enjoy the blissful blow of cool air and water vapor on your face.

My point is that it never ends. As we’re buying up all of this “stuff,” we’re wasting money, polluting the earth and adding another piece of junk to our already overcrowded lives. To offset the havoc we purchase yet another useless product and on and on it goes.

Yes, it’s a cruel cruel world out there. And if for a moment a gigantic pencil, fuzzy toilet seat cover or fat burning belt will make it seem all the more bearable, then purchase away. But at least try to buy used.

Behold the gallery . . .
Top Ten Most Useless and Unnecessary Pieces of Crap

The Auto-Adjusting Wrench
Put the monkey wrench to shame. No need to sweat and waste your energy spinning the thumbwheel manually. Instead, just press “power” and the Auto-Adjusting Wrench will mechanically close in on that nut like a python closing in on its prey. Of course, once adjusted you’ll have to turn the wrench yourself, but at least you got the hard part out of the way.

The Banana Holder
Not to be confused with the “Banana Hammock.” Seriously though, what happens when you are down to one banana? How does that Banana stay safe?

Oh, of course! Silly me! Just put it in a Plastic Banana Guard.

The Plastic Banana Guard

The Battery-Powered Spinning Bottle
Jeez, kids today! They have it so easy. Back in my day (insert rambling aged voice here) we actually had to rotate the bottle. Can you imagine? Whirling it by hand to facilitate a painful make-out session or seven minutes in heaven. What torture. We really were living in the dark ages.

The Fuzzy Toilet Seat Cover
Aside from serving absolutely no purpose whatsoever, the furry toilet seat is gross. I mean, why on earth would I want a carpet on my toilet? I don’t want to get into graphic detail here, but stray tagnuts and winnets . . . before you know it you’ve got a dingleberry garden.

The Paper Weight
If by divine intervention a gust of wind blazeth through your windowless cubicle, be sure to protect thy papers with a 4 ounce paperweight.

The Mechanized Egg Cracker
The line of crap destined to fill up your kitchen is seemingly endless. Exhibit A: the egg cracker, a plastic device with which you . . . crack an egg. God forbid we need to knock on the side of a bowl. How, one wonders, has humanity ever survived without a mechanized egg cracker?

The Baby Wipes Warmer
The baby industry capitalizes on the deepest fears of new and nervous parents. Certainly your baby will be uncomfortable, unhappy and will hate you for life if you do not wipe its bum with a warm wipey. This particular model ensures that it won’t dehydrate the wipes, “as leading wipe warmers tend to do.” You know what else won’t dry out the wipes? Not using a wipe warmer.

The Melon Wedger
Need I point out that most kitchens have a knife?

The Leaf Blower
What good is a rake when you can happily puff leaves into your neighbor’s yard with a gas powered leaf blower? Yeah, blowers hemorrhage fossil fuel, but then again nothing’s more satisfying than chasing down that last recalcitrant leaf and blasting it into oblivion.

For “Top 10 Most Useless Items of Crapola” and more from Olivia Zaleski check out her weekly column, “Enviro-mental: Going Green without Going Crazy” on the Huffington Post.

consumerism, junk, Recycling

Smartest Car; Still Worse Than The Dumbest Bike

8 Comments

by Katie Kish · 12/30/07

Pink Car

The process of buying and making new cars isn’t the solution to this enormous fossil fuel problem we’re having. Hackneyed as it might seem, we need to develop long term sustainable community transportation, AND to rethink the way that we structure our lives around cars.

Buying a smart car is kind of like putting a band aid on a giant gash- technically, at a minuscule level, it’s helping- but if your concern stops at your purchase, you’re still going bleed to death… and worse, you may begin to confuse consumerism with activism. Often, trying to change the world by buying things isn’t really creating the change that companies convince us it is.

However, having said all that…