Why Not to Wear Flying Monkeys

How do you change the world? Start with the shirt on your back… because it’s become a monkey on your back… a flying monkey, at that

The following link is a CBC article discussing “the ideal amount of clothing in a sustainable wardrobe”... a friend posted it, and being me, my response outgrew being a comment and has turned into a blog post (keep scrolling)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/what-on-earth-sustainable-clothing-1.6765185

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According to this article, 85 pieces of clothing - not counting underwear and accessories - constitutes a “sustainable” wardrobe

I appreciate seeing the principle of sustainability applied to the concept of dress in a mainstream news source… but while there’s some good discussion in this article, there’s problems with the perspective

To start, the number of items considered to be minimal - 85 plus underwear, plus accessories - is absurd… I know several people (including, not infrequently, myself) who live with two changes of clothing, and though many of them are in warmer climates, I know many in cold places who have little more and weather the weather just fine, because they understand how to use proper layers and materials

We’ve lost the distinctions between needs and wants, and that is absolutely key to any concept of ecologically sustainable change

Clothing is not entertainment… consciously or not, we use it that way, from coveting to shopping to showing off… we use it as a form of entertainment

Along with more obvious forms of entertainment, it’s one of the modern parallels to how the Romans kept the masses too well entertained and distracted by inconsequential concerns to stand up for themselves

It's part of the circus contrived to keep us complacent, and this circus is full of flying monkeys

We also use dress as a form of communication… but using it to advertise our income and indicate social status is not only becoming irrelevant, it’s already become predominantly dishonest

More dangerously, we use it as a placebo for selfwork

So the volume of clothing we have come to accept as necessary is bizarrely inflated

Why?

We’re conditioned to use dress and appearance to find validation

The scale of houses and many housing units has become disproportionately large (relative to needs) - we are conditioned to keep taking up more space, and to keep filling that space with more stuff

The clothing and textiles industry is incredibly destructive… and incredibly lucrative, and increasingly influential in far deeper ways than it should be… there are piles of accessible research related to this… and mountains of unusable clothing and textiles destroying ecosystems and cultures around the planet

Yes, it destroys cultures, the same way it destroys the environment… it parasitically rots it… the glut of used and unsold clothing sent from western countries to less developed countries has already devastated their own richly integral textile traditions, and the livelihood of millions along with that

And much of the world’s clothing now is either synthetic, or over-treated and over-processed natural fibres.… this is a lot more detrimental to our own health than we understand, and it wreaks havoc on the environment… but healthy and sustainable clothing is as much an exclusive commodity as healthy food and water have become

Short term profit has completely overshadowed long term practicability, and even common sense

Like anything else, quality outlasts quantity… practical sense outperforms whims… refusing to tolerate the status quo, and not allowing ourselves to be manipulated, will create the changes we need

So how do you change the world?

Start with the shirt on your back

That's one flying monkey it's relatively easy to lose

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I studied dress and identity, and material culture, in a Human Ecological context for several years until I lost my dear friend and graduate studies supervisor to Alzheimer’s shortly before submitting my thesis, which was about how women and those who identify as women use dress while renegotiating identity after trauma

I almost wish I could go back and write again, about how we all can, could, and need to do similarly in response to the trauma of facing near term social collapse and human extinction, and as we negotiate the trauma of global ecosystem failure

I also worked in clothing consignment for several years, at which time my official job title (on contract and card) was ‘Retail Therapist’

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In the interests of transparency, I used to have two large closets full of clothes, plus dozens of pairs of shoes and boots, and an accumulation of accessories, plus a very large sewing and mending pile

I now have — items of wearable clothing, as listed below… much of it is multipurpose… it’s much more than usual, as I recently lived somewhere with no means of washing clothes, including by hand, so this list feels exorbitant and I am in the process of switching out and getting rid of many pieces… I also have a small pile of unwearable clothing items which are in their way to a date with my sewing machine to become different, new-to-me, wearable or otherwise useful items

• approximately 50 pieces of assorted underwear (about 30 pairs of underpants because of the previously mentioned former no-laundry situation, 2 back-support bras, 3 bra/bathing suit tops, 4 bathing suit bottoms, not quite a dozen pairs of socks)

• 1 belt

• 6 pairs of leggings and longjohns

• 4 long sleeve shirts

• 6 short sleeve shirts

• 4 tank tops

• 1 sleeveless long dress

• 1 pair of presentable linen pants

• 2 long warm skirts

• 2 flannel button-up shirt/jackets

• 3 midlayer cardigan/jacket things

• 1 rain jacket

• 1 spring/fall coat

• 1 parka

• 1 wool scarf/shawl

• 1 wool hat

• 1 Tilley hat

• 1 pair winter boots

• 1 pair gumboots

• 1 pair wrecked sandals

• 1 shirt no longer wearable as a shirt so now I sleep in it

That’s 36ish pieces (with the “ish” accounting for approximate numbers), not including underwear and accessories (as per the article attached)

I also did not include a couple each of tops and bottoms and over-shirts used as rough work clothes (not that I can do much requiring those any more; they may be passed on or the fabric used for creating other things)

It’s more than I want or need

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Borrowed from an article full of - and entitled - Photos of Various Fying Monkey's Outfits... https://www.vintag.es/2020/05/flying-monkey-costume-tests.html