This Modern Life

It’s a rainy autumn afternoon and at the office meeting it has just been announced that because of the recent slow-down in jobs, the office will be technically closed on Fridays to allay costs. This is happening so that the company may remain in the black without laying anyone off. Being the most recent hire, and near the bottom of the design totem pole, I know I’d most likely be the one they let go if it came down to it – unless, of course, they decide they don’t need a receptionist. I already fill in for her, since her job is much simpler than mine.

I spend upwards of ten hours a day on the computer. In good old days, this time would have been spent over a Mayline, and at the end of the day I would have been complaining of graphite on my sleeves and back aches rather than carpel tunnel and eye fatigue. There are people in this firm still who are more comfortable with a computer-free past, which is why they need me. I translate their scribbles into the modern context.

I am very keen on context. Once upon a time when I was filling in an application at a community college I thought that context was architecture. I am artistic by nature, yet technical; the arrangement of space and how things are made fascinates me, but not to the point that I wanted to be an inventor or engineer. That seemed too dry, too mundane. I needed romance. Making larger than life art that serves a function, and has to work  – firmitas, utilitas, venustas - now that seemed the place to be!  

Then I got a job in the industry and learned that in practice, even the most intense design charette with the most steely-eyed, cynical critic will not prepare you for the mind-numbing level of paperwork and technical fussing that actually comprises the lower levels of the architecture profession. I am in the wrong field.

It took me years to hone down my interests into something I could reasonably compartmentalize: the history of technology. But even that is inadequate.

I read books on the evolution of the flushable toilet. I want to know how public sanitation works, in detail, and why, and what it was like before. But I have no desire to be a sanitation engineer.

I research the forms of houses, why we order the rooms the way we do, and what sociotechnical innovations changed these things, and what stayed the same. But I don’t want to be an architectural historian.

I ask questions like, “Why do we use sheets?” and find that it is similar to the question, “Why do we wear underwear?” (A: to keep something more precious than the cheaper sheet/underwear fabric clean.) 

The Why of things runs neck-and-neck with the How to me; I need a reason as well as a method, and I want to see it in practice. I want to truly understand and experience it.

Lately I have been considering some very fundamental aspects of modern life as I know it. My interest in the past and my desire to experience something other than the mundane world has driven me back into the arms of the Society for Creative Anachronism. What began as a simple mission to assemble a seemingly appropriate Medieval outfit has transformed into an exploration of historical sewing processes, dying, and plausible reasoning behind fashion trends. I am enamored.

So what does this all have to do with the aforementioned office meeting, and the potential for my impending unemployment?

All I could think about while my future dangled on this precipice was what it would be like if I had to sew all my clothes by hand. It would completely transform the way I interact with my clothes, and my life, I suspect. Change is obviously in the air, so why not make it a radical change? 

The Exploration Challenge

I want to delve as deeply into the history and practice of clothing production before the advent of the sewing machine and synthetic dyes as I can. The best way I can imagine to do this is to live it.

So here is my proposal:

• I will purge my closet of non-essential clothing items. I only wear a fraction of what is in my closet, so this shouldn’t be too severe of a hardship.
•  I will replace the items I am keeping within six months with hand-made items. They can be knit, crocheted, or hand sewn. They will not be synthetically dyed, but they may be machine-loomed or spun because of budget limitations.
•  I will continue to augment and improve upon the hand-made wardrobe and see how far I can push it. (Will I make shoes? Coats? Underwear?) I will do this for a year… unless I become addicted, or natural disaster strikes.
• And I will blog it.