INTRODUCTION
WELCOME
The Mindful Designer’s Almanac is a collection of monthly entries that share diverse research and stories about how we grow, make, wear, and dispose of clothing.
PURPOSE
The Mindful Designer’s Almanac honors the many ways of creating a positive impact. It seeks to increase knowledge that informs diverse design and sourcing decisions.
Often sustainable and ethical sourcing are limited to which initiatives have the loudest voices (see Figure 1). But in an industry built on creativity, sourcing should also be a creative act that aligns with an individual’s ethical, environmental, and philosophical goals. Without this alignment, actions lose their authenticity and become a checked box rather than a meaningful change.
Using a holistic approach, the Mindful Designer’s Almanac is a resource to discover the entire story behind the clothing we wear and a catalyst for creating authentic positive changes in the industry.
Figure 1: An example of a potential downside of loud initiatives- carbon obsession may create a divestment from and disinterest in the many other deserving routes toward a positive impact
GLOBAL FIBER CALENDAR
Almanacs traditionally are resources to understand how natural cycles interact with specific topics. At their core, almanacs are a way to ground into what is happening at certain moments in time-they offer calendars, predictions, and recommendations rooted in the present. In an industry built on convoluted systems (see Figure 3), an almanac is an apt way to return to the source and celebrate the interconnectedness of nature and clothing.
Everything we wear comes from the Earth and is a part of natural cycles. Each month, The Mindful Designer’s Almanac offers musings about natural fibers that are seasonally relevant (see Figure 2).
Figure 2: The harvest times that will be highlighted in future entries. Note these are examples of harvest times, dates may vary based on year, geography, farming methods, etc.
Figure 3: An example of a convoluted system.
UPCOMING
Each month, I will post a new entry- a mix of research overviews, discussions, interviews, and meditations on the natural fiber in season that month. I am using this project as a way to further develop my knowledge of how clothing and nature connect and evolve my assumptions about how to best grow, make, wear, and dispose of clothing. I hope a community grows around it, and we can expand our potential for positive change together.