1/28/23

Hello all, I sincerely hope that you have all had an amazing week. Went fast, didn't it? Crazy how time flies. What's really crazy is how fake everything is. I fully believe I live in a simulation at this point, not in a governmental control way, but in a time flux kind of way. I believe that Phoenix itself is some kind of time portal, like Interstellar or the mirror dimension from Doctor Strange, thus explaining why everything in Phoenix is not real. What the fuck is Castles and Coasters, why is everything so expensive when everyone here is broke, there is so much reason for fish and sushi to have such a strong grip on a landlocked state. My hypothesis is that Phoenix was created to mimic what people loved doing in the 70s-90s, and was done with a $5 budget. Thus Castles and Coasters, Arizona Mills, and the people I pass on the sidewalk actively shooting up (that's what people did for fun in the 70s-90s). 

But it's ok. For me at least. I've been getting a lot of time aside to plan out a trip I'm taking over spring break to Colorado and I genuinely could not be more excited. I haven't camped in years, up until now, I hadn't gone more than a year in between camping trips since I was six. As of now, I'm planning a tour0adjascent trip around the South/West region of Colorado, most likely not going further North than Denver. My goal, as it is in the works, is we drive up through Arizona, maybe stop once or twice for food, but then spend the first night camping in Cortez, sightseeing at Mesa Verde which is an old national park with old dwellings from ancient Puebloans. Then we go east to Great Sand Dunes, which I've visited a long time ago but have been dying to go back to. After that, I'd like to head north toward the Colorado Springs area and get an Airbnb for the night. The issue I'm coming to, however, is that I want this trip to be mainly me foraging off the map, effectively, for a week just experiencing nature. But I do also want to sightsee. I've been to Colorado previously, but I never went to Denver or any of the real residential areas, so I would love to see both, but the layout of Colorado is not what I need it to be. I wish the places I wanted to go formed a concentric circle but no, for some reason they have to be on all different corners of the state. That being said, I have a lot of planning yet to do, and not a long time to do it, so if anybody has some recommendations or tips, my email and Instagram are attached to the blog, please help me. 

Other than that, my time has been pretty school/work oriented. I've officially given up romantic anything, I want to devote my time to myself and things I can do to progress my character and career. So I have been actually trying with my school work recently. I know I said last semester that it was the first time I had experienced really trying in school, and I definitely still think that is the case. However, with the workload I currently have, being pretty easily manageable, I feel like I've been able to try and actually learn stuff from it because I'm not quite as stressed to just get it done. That has always been my problem with the school which I'm sure a lot of people will relate to, if professors or teachers actually spent the time or just that little bit of effort to actually make what they're lecturing us about enjoyable, it does make it a lot easier to do the homework.  The point is, homework has never been the issue. Yes, it's objectively not fun to spend your free time doing work for things you just spent all day learning about, but the issue is not having to do it, it's how mind-numbingly pointless it feels. But, as this doesn't feel like the case quite yet, I have been significantly more motivated to do artistic stuff on my own. I haven't done shit yet, I made a singular silk-lined star-shaped bag that looks like dog shit cause I do not have an iron, but I can feel the shift in my mind. When Im home from class and work, and I have nothing to do, my only thought is not to sit on my bed and do nothing, I actually have the desire to make things again. What's more, I met this dude the other day who I had seen around the art building on my campus but never talked to, and he told me he runs this group that showcases students at my university fashion stuff, and that if I ever have the stuff to show him I can text him and set something up! How exciting is that? I don't know anything about it, how seriously I should take it or not, but he seemed like a cool dude so I trust that, if I do ever want to showcase some stuff, he knows what he's doing and won't make it cringe-school affiliated shit. 

What's more, I'm finally taking real fashion classes again, construction and illustration, which has probably aided in my brain function in the art-oriented way it has been recently. The illustration class is going to be nice, right now it kind of sucks, though Im aware I only think that because it's barely started yet. Construction on the other hand I already know is not an enjoyable experience for me. Effectively the point of the class is to teach us different construction methods and then have us prove we know how to do it on our own by making a full-sized garment. Both are somewhat easy to accomplish. The issue I have with the class comes hand-in-hand with the issues I have with most of the institutions I am a part of.  Now I don't know how much of this opinion is due to my granola-adjacent upbringing in school, but I have always thought art was a personal thing, meant to be done in whatever way is efficient for the artist. I also thought fashion was art. I will also say that, yes, garment construction does have a specific way to do it successfully...professionally. My issue is that I'm being called stupid in my class for not attaching the lining correctly when the way I was doing it would've ended up with the same result regardless. It's that that is killing my enthusiasm for fashion. Yes, I have things to learn, and yes you're the professional who can teach me, but when I already know how to do it, I'm just doing it more efficiently, and also quicker, for I trust that after almost two full years of fashion school, I understand the bare minimum basics to do this successfully on my own. However, the construction class is also good for me, aside from being belittled by a 56-year-old woman who has a similar way of thinking to me (learning disability. The class allows you to make a full-sized garment, something I don't find I have a lot of free time to do. Last year I made a white dress shirt and a pair of pants, the pants turning out a lot better than the former. This year I believe we're making another pair of pants and a vest, both of which I'm very excited about. I hate to toot my own horn, but I have noticed I've gotten better at the construction element of fashion, and if nothing else, I'm excited about finally being able to create things again. 

As my brain has been thinking more on the fashion side of things, I've been considering more the industry I'm heading into. A report I recently read said 2023 is going to be a rough year for fashion. Still in recovery from the pandemic, a lot of brands are trying to re-establish their brand identity, while also trying to make back the money they all lost. Target recently released that they're planning on expanding their floor plan by over 2x the original standard layout, 150,000 square feet to be exact. Supposedly this is to compensate for bigger warehouse space, as well as offering a wider variety of items, and completely changing the aesthetic of their brand, to match their sustainable mission statement. This ties into my next point, the report also stated more restrictions on greenwashing and further laws to be put into place to enforce greener practices. I'm not sure how common the phrase "greenwashing" is, for those who don't know, greenwashing is a more recent struggle that I don't think is exclusive to the fashion industry, in which brands make vague or even false promises of becoming more environmentally friendly, and yet changing almost nothing. A good example of this would be brands like H&M, which recently gave all stores a recycling plan to eliminate further garment waste. However, the issue is they enforced this by giving all H&M stores recycling bins, and that's pretty much it. Very rarely do the actual stores themselves participate in the recycling, a store I worked at admitted to just throwing it all away anyway. This is similar to how a lot of brands use "sustainable/recycled material" labels on their clothing. Yes the material may have been ethically sourced, or the fabric is indeed recycled, but what are the practices used in the factories that assembled it? How much water was used to wash off all that recycled material? Brands can say they're doing things, but it's either not the actual issue, or they just aren't doing it. However, as restrictions tighten, brands are going to have to start doing it, which I think is not going to go over well if they do plan on keeping these restrictions in place. I think we're going to see a lot of fast fashion brands like Forever21, Pacsun,  and Urban Outfitters fall off or have to change their retailing methods entirely. Forever21 can't keep up, they're gone, maybe Pacsun's brand can't keep up, so they eliminate their brand clothing and only sell other brands in their stores. The same report also stated a rise in luxury clothing also as a result of covid. While we have shifted away from what used to be traditional formal attire, were replacing the rented suits and prom dresses with actual luxury designer brands. My theory is wealth disparity, the upper middle class is now upper class, the middle and lower middle class are now lower class, and now the snooty bitches from your high school who could afford designer but only a Louis Vuitton clutch can now afford Miu Miu ballet flats, also as a result of the overexposure the fashion industry has been experienced. You no longer have style unless you're wearing a brand, but middle brands like Brandy Melville and Express don't cut it anymore, you need Supreme and Mugler. This is also going to result in more reliance on non-full-priced garments whether that's sales or second-hand apparel, there's a huge gap forming in the way we now spend our money. 

All this is to say that the fashion industry is fully collapsing in on itself. Designers don't know what to make anymore, God bless Ziwe and ARCA but we've seen that Schiaparelli shows about three times last season alone, and that's not a matter of similar creative ideas like I talked about a few weeks ago, this is full-on carbon copy please dear god make something different. I will be talking about the runways I've been seeing this week next week, but I'm going to be talking about like all of them so buckled down. For this week, I'm done. Media this week has pretty much not changed. For music id say Sublime is probably the artist I've been listening to the most. Waiting for my Ruca? Forgetaboutit. Caress me Down? Everyday. However, for the song of the week, I'm gonna go in a different direction. "Unfold" by Melody's Echo Chamber is so good it's unreal. I will be listening to the first few little twangs on the electric guitar on repeat. I also started watching the Covid season of Love Island. How do yall watch these shows? It greens me the fuck out every time. Those are not real people, I refuse to accept any of them existed prior to 2017. But that's all.

I hope you have a pretty neat week, drink water. Legalize gay weed. I don't know. I have gonorrhea.

~Christian Reid Mironovic <3