The Pineneedle Collective

Monday, 30 September 2013

Ethical Clothing Directory

[November 2015 UPDATE: I'm removing inactive stores and adding some new ones! Check back soon for a fully-updated list!]

When I made this post about a month ago about switching to ethical fashion, I soon realised that there wasn't really anywhere left for me to shop. It seemed like hardly any retailers I knew and loved had taken the steps to ensure that their workers were being paid fairly and had good working conditions. And a quick google search for "ethical clothing" only yielded either super-extra-organic-made-in-the-depths-of-the-himalyas-enchanted-by-the-breath-of-a-fairy sack-style clothing (always in "earthy tones" too for some reason), or beautiful indie dresses selling for $500 a pop. I was starting to think that the only way for me to get "new" clothes would be visiting second-hand stores and making my own stuff (which is still never a bad idea, don't get me wrong). But never fear - there are stores out there! They're just pretty hard to find!

For the past month or so, I've been putting together a little ethical clothing directory of established stores (inspired by Ron's own curation) with clothes which actually suit my style and my budget. I've basically sorted out a place to shop for everything that I might need in my wardrobe - and all are around the same prices of clothing that I used to buy from retail stores, anyway. I hope that those of you who are wanting to buy more ethically, but also don't have unlimited money, will find this very useful.

Note: if you are having trouble viewing this post or are on a phone/tablet, click here.

Clothing

Undergarments & Swimwear

Jewellery and Accessories

Sunglasses

Bags
Fair trade bags (as in satchel and messenger bags, not just handmade tote bags of which there are a plethora on etsy), were a difficult item to find.

Hearts seems to be the best option for bags:

And while not particularly cheap, Cambridge Co. and Zatchels are ethically produced and made to last:

Boojiboo Boutique and JH Fabric Creations from Etsy do cute handmade messenger bags that aren't particularly pricy:

And this store makes bags out of recycled fire hoses:

Tights and Socks

Birkshire and We Love Colours are both made in the USA as well.

Footwear

I hope that someone out there has found this list useful! The hardest thing about letting go of those retail stores, especially if you're a poor student or young worker, is that the pricing is sometimes too attractive to walk by. Well, now there's no excuses.

If you think of any stores I should add to this list, let me know below!

Sunday, 29 September 2013

Golden Hour Hamburgers / Time Perception

Pinafore and shirt are thrifted, socks are from Tutuanna, necklace is from Clear It and shoes are from Japan.
Photos are by Ana Andrés.

I love golden hour! It is without doubt the best time for taking photos because you can't go wrong with golden hour lighting - shadows are super soft and the light is warm and nostalgic. And these photos ended up kinda romantic too - if you look very closely you can see two separate couples in their wedding gear in the background (nawww).

These photos finally prompted me to slightly adjust my blog layout so that I can have bigger photos! From now on, all my photos will be of this size (and please ignore the inconsistency between this and the last post!)

A science paper that came out in the last week has utterly fascinated me, and I needed to share it with you all. If you've been reading my blog for a while, you will know that I am also fascinated by perception and have talked in depth about colour perception in particular. Your perception can be totally different both to another person's, and to other animal's perception of the world. But I've usually only focused on visual perception. Today, I'm going to talk about time perception.

You've probably been in this situation before - endlessly trying to swat at a mosquito or a fly, but it always moves away too quickly for your hand to reach it. Well, a new study shows that small creatures probably perceive time as much slower than we do. That noisy flying insect starts seeing your hand moving slooooowly towards it, yawns, has a scratch, then leisurely moves out of the way. For that insect, you might as well be moving though honey.

Image source

Smaller animals, and animals with faster metabolisms, have their visual system send updates to their brain more frequently than larger, slower animals like humans, elephants and turtles. In order to discover this relationship, researchers from Ireland and the U.K. correlated body size and metabolism with the ability to recognise flashes of light per second. A light that appears constant to us (such as televisions, which are actually a series of images rather than a constant stream), will appear like a strobing light to animals such as dogs and flies, as TVs refresh more slowly than the visual systems of these animals do.

And just as colour perception could theoretically vary from person to person, it has left me wondering if time perception can too (children certainly seem to get bored a lot more quickly than adults - could this in part be due to them perceiving the world more slowly?)

A lot to think about! Read more here, and have a great day,

Friday, 27 September 2013

Giant Snails & Floral Yellows

top is DIY (from a thrifted dress), skirt it thrifted, shoes are from Japan, socks are from Tutuanna and hat is c/o Wholesale.

Photos are by Ana Andrés.

Sometimes, Sydney can be pretty cool. These snails have been popping up all around the city as part of an art project, and while I was taking photos with Ana Andrés the other day we decided they'd be a good prop for one of my outfits!

I made this top from a frumpy floral dress that I got from a second hand store in Japan - I couldn't go past the sunflower fabric. In fact, I made it into both a cropped top and a skirt, and it's much more flattering than it was in its previous form! I'm really getting into making my own clothes again - now I've stopped constantly buying new things, it's really forced me to start tackling my pile of "to do" clothing!

I was hoping that some kind of giant snail like the one above actually existed (or had existed, though all I could find when looking up giant snail fossils was places to buy them...). However, the actual largest living snail in the world is called the Australian trumpet snail (and I'll let you google them yourselves if you want to see pictures of them, because they're pretty freaky and I learnt my lesson after people freaked about me posting about underwater spiders). Here's a picture of a shell which once contained a trumpet snail, so you can imagine how huge they are.

Anyway, these snails can weigh up to 18kg, and be almost one metre long. Apparently they live in Australia - though I've never seen one haha! They exist right up at the top of Australia, in the oceans (they are in fact a sea snail), and also live in some parts of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

These snails are actually about the same size as the pet snails in Spongebob, so now I can't help but imagine that they all look like Gary.

I hope that you're all having a most wonderful day! P.s. have a read of the swimsuit styling article I did for Birdee magazine!

Wednesday, 25 September 2013

DIY Watermelon Print Cropped Sweatshirt

Whenever I have had a spare moment lately (a rare occurrence - I've been working every single day in the laboratory) I have been making my own clothes - something I've really been wanting to do more of since around the time of this post. Anyway, I finally finished this project - a watermelon print cropped sweatshirt! Instructions for making your own are below.

First off, draw a watermelon shape like this on a piece of cardboard, and cut it out. This will be your stencil.

Figure out what you want your design to look like. I used this watermelon printed top and basically copied the design exactly, haha. But whether you decide to draw this style of watermelon or use some other picture - or something entirely different from watermelons - it helps to find a picture of what you are drawing before you start (particularly if you are not good at drawing, like me).

It will also help to draw your design onto a piece of paper first, to make sure that you can get it right and like the design before committing pen to fabric.

Place fabric pins or some other marker in each place where you want a watermelon. Make sure you're only pinning one side of the fabric (you will need to insert a piece of paper inside later).

Insert a piece of paper inside the shirt so the pen doesn't bleed through to the other side of the fabric. Use your black permanent marker and the piece of cardboard you cut out before to draw watermelon outlines wherever you placed a pin.

Then simply colour them in one-by-one using fabric markers (making sure you always have a piece of paper behind the fabric).

Now you're nearly done! Iron the shirt to seal the colour into the fabric. Then, if you want to crop the shirt, simply cut across the bottom, a little bit longer than the desired length, fold the edge up twice, and sew across the bottom using a straight stitch.

I picked up this tip from Rachel for making sure the edges don't pucker when hemming - simply sew across a piece of paper, then rip it off when done! It works a treat for any kind of stretchy fabric.