SLOW WEAR
A new movement promotes punk-practical, sweatshop- and chemical-free clothing that's still dance-worthy
Terri Saul, Special to The Chronicle
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Chris Ospital wears Martin Margiela and Ben Ospital sports Lanvin at MAC, their Hayes Valley store. Chronicle photo by Eric Luse
"The hills are groaning with excess, like a table being ceaselessly set. C'mon will you dance my darling?"
-- Joanna Newsom, "Monkey and Bear"
Inspired by the cuisine of Alice Waters and the successful organic markets of the Ferry Building (a temple of conscientious consumption), Ben and Chris Ospital and their mother, Jeri, are on the cutting edge of San Francisco's Slow Clothing movement, which combines new ideas about beauty with old-fashioned concepts of utility that are now coming back into vogue.
The siblings run Modern Appealing Clothing, a.k.a. MAC, a Hayes Valley store and gallery that has become a popular gathering place for those who combine fashionable tastes with progressive leanings.
Eco-styles found at the store draw on punk practicality: pants that won't get caught in a bike chain, skirts with wide bottoms, jackets that become pillows, unrestricting shirts, materials used economically (sparing the extra petroleum products), sweatshop-free dresses, more expensive but longer-lasting items, dance-worthy mix-and-match lines, sex-positive lingerie and naturally dyed designs.
Interviewed at the store, Ben does most of the talking, while Chris nods and chimes in once Ben's bushy mustache stops moving. Ben is wearing khakis by Dries Van Noten and an Engineered Garments button-down shirt. Chris is clothed in a responsibly produced cotton shirt and pants by Sofie d'Hoore.
When the Ospitals decided to create MAC in 1980, "we were free-minded and wanted to do our own thing," Ben recalls.
"We feel very strongly about our tribe," Ben says of their designers, including such local favorites as mod Lemon Twist and super-mod Dema.
Danette Scheib of Lemon Twist, known for modular forms, circular pockets and frayed edges held in place with color-contrasting topstitching, says: "Our pieces are made well and although very modern, have a sort of timelessness that enables one to wear them for a long time. This, to me, is also helpful to the environment." Jumpers, skirts and dresses are about $120 and up. They hang on the average hips well without pinching. One can play at being Monica Vitti in an Antonioni film.
The clothing of Dema Grim, famous for her Vespa-riding gear for women, shouts out an implicit message: "Rock on with your frock on!" Her pants are long and loose. Her skirts swing. Her little button-up blouses are softly lined and studded with old-fashioned satin buttons. She's still not able to produce low-impact, sustainable clothing, but knows that protesters are asking for change. Some Lemon Twist customers request custom-made clothing snipped from eco-fabrics, but they aren't complaining about Dema's threads enough to fund her transition to earth-friendly motor gear.
Ben, Chris and Jeri are auteurs of this budding movement; they apply a film director's sense of mise-en-scene to their store and its contents. Where else can one find a bustier fronted by a miniature formal pantsuit that looks like a small person clinging to one's cleavage? In the entryway, visitors are greeted by a greenhouse-like tableau and rolling racks attended by dandies. Children drawing on the floor and two man-size dogs lounge harmonisouly amid biomorphic cardboard sculptures and leftover tea snacks.
MAC's aesthetic may serve a deeper purpose: Since hurried shopping leads to degradation of the environment and the filling up of landfills with useless garbage bought on the run, it's best to take the time to find what's really deserving of the moniker "second skin." Ben points out that these days, when shoppers flip the label to see the price, they also take the time to flip the label over to see where it's manufactured.
"The overwhelming thought about expensive clothes is that you go into the store and it feels like an emergency room," Ben contends. But clothing should be carefully considered, as much as food. Fashion isn't just about what's in, but what's not in it: fur, plastics and chemicals. More and more mainstream companies are becoming aware of the desire for chemical-free fabrics. Levi's recently launched an organic brand, Levi's Eco.
In the essay "Beautility: Good Design Has Utility," product designer and New York University communications Professor Tucker Viemeister defines "beautility" as "the convergence of ethics and aesthetics."
The desire to be fashionably dressed is often associated with superficiality; the craving for beautiful garments has been tied up with pain -- unhealthy stereotypes and exploitative practices. Punks are typically anti-fashion and morally opposed to shopping. But everyone needs something to wear, and trading clothes with friends can have its limits.
Ben and Chris have a lot to say, not only about eco-chic but also party politics. "We took back the Congress. We took back the Senate. Now we're going to take back khakis," they say in unison. They carry unusual khakis in shapes they suspect a Republican wouldn't be caught dead wearing, such as a full-length fishtail-hemmed evening skirt. Ben has faith in khaki as a proletarian fabric, rooted in the idea of everyday work and life, like an Eames chair.
"Japanese designers are doing khakis in so many different weird, wonderful, wacky ways that no supporter of George Bush would touch them!" he says, adding that Belgians like Martin Margiela, inspired by the wash-and-wear styles of the '60s, are making washable suits in khaki.
In San Francisco, it's about survival of the fittest outfit, and the forgotten joy of being mobile. Preventing-the-apocalypse fashion is not just about eco gear-heads and survival freaks with GPS devices, it also speaks to ordinary environmentalists, hitting anxious urbanites in the gut. Ben and Chris wax enraptured when they talk about the long process of developing lines of clothing with independent designers.
"When you look at the nature of clothing, they're made by hands," Ben says. "Hands make them. It's really sad when people get caught up with names and labels. At the end of the day, it's the process that created the extraordinary garment."
Persuading consumers to buy green isn't always easy. Take hemp. So far, hemp lines have failed to attract a large following, even though it's one of the most sustainable fibers on the planet; it requires absolutely no fertilizer, and it's tremendously pest resistant. The problem is, its heavy texture is seen as un-hip.
Zoe Banks, a retailer of organic sheets, says, "Back in the day, hemp clothing used to look ridiculous, like hemp muumuus. Eco-fashion will start reflecting trends more, what's wearable. The electric car used to look ridiculous -- now it's almost indistinguishable from any mainstream car."
While hemp "silk" has potential to be a beautiful fabric, it's hard to come by. The government makes it difficult for hemp farmers to grow and refine their products, even though hemp contains little or no THC, the chemical that provides marijuana's high.
Shay Camarda had her bridesmaids' dresses made out of hemp from Two Star Dog of Berkeley. She says Two Star Dog, one of the earliest producers of hemp fashion, has dramatically improved its designs, from unappealing functional clothes to items that would never brand her as a pot farmer living off the grid with a composting toilet. They've experimented with such blends as hemp and Tencel, a fiber derived from wood. Maybe soon your pants will be laced with dope you can't smoke. (The downside of hemp manufacturing is, as in the case of cotton, long-term exposure to its dust can lead to lung problems in textile workers.)
But dressing for global survival doesn't necessarily require sackcloth chic or taking on the Drug Enforcement Administration.
When fresh San Francisco designers combine organic cottons with street-inspired silk-screens, Ben says, "It kind of debunks the theory that organic things have to be homespun. They can have a sense of humor and be well designed."
But Dema finds that eco fabrics are still prohibitively expensive and bulky. "Unfortunately, I have a hard time finding environmentally friendly fabrics in the small quantities that I use as a small manufacturer," she says. "I look every time I go to the textile shows, but the minimums are usually more than I can bear."
A lot of times designers come up with great ideas, and we always have to think about -- well, it's fun and freewheeling, and sometimes the design itself will give you goose bumps," Ben says. "But at the end of the day you always want to feel like you can hike up Nob Hill in that skirt." He likes to imagine his customers wearing a MAC outfit while they ride their dressy bikes to the Opera. MAC carries lighter fabrics for San Francisco winters, heavier weights for foggy summers, and garments that don't require dry cleaning or frequent washings.
And you won't be tricked into buying dog fur; the fake fur at MAC is synthetic and cruelty-free.
"Anything we do has to resonate with some level of authenticity, so then you have it for a long time," said Ben. Asked what matches what, he replies, "All good things go together."
When anti-fashion activists see red, they can run the risk of protesting everything experimental, from bamboo fabrics to organic cotton, on the grounds of the potential danger they can cause to the environment. But bamboo, an ingredient in some of the hottest eco-fabrics, is more sustainable than cotton, even though its critics worry that the fast growth of bamboo forests will lead to ecological imbalance.
One of MAC's favorite Belgian designers, the deconstructionist Margiela, has an artisanal line, using 100 percent post-consumer garments to make new ones, finding beauty in the trash bin. He uses some new fabrics in his Replica line, where he recycles ideas instead of objects, but he distresses the fabrics to make them appear older. It's a mystery whether this designer is truly championing recycling or just seducing his buyers by giving his pieces a vintage look. His latest creations include jackets made out of old suitcases and garment bags. He's also built jagged postmodern dresses out of torn-up headscarfs, and waistcoats made of butterflied high-tops.
"What's great about the Belgians is that it's less likely that they're going to have a 20-page ad campaign," Ben says. "Quite frankly, you're going to be paying for that in the clothes. Instead they put their efforts into the designs."
More people are becoming aware of the expenses of excess and ignorance. If one keeps a carefully produced garment for years, that's saving money and helping the environment.
MAC's idea of luxury is a comfortable, safely produced T-shirt that outlasts less expensive products made under questionable conditions with a shorter shelf-life.
"Yes, they're more money, but if you advertise the cost of a perfect T-shirt, it's far cheaper than the $10 designer garment you got at some big chain store, that somebody died making, that will give you BO," Ben said.
Participants in the clothing revolution at places like MAC are influenced by an idea put forth in "The Cultural Influence of Brands: In Defense of Advertising," an essay by Chris Riley (a brand strategist and founder of Studio Riley): "A business designed only to grow capital is far more likely to create distress and cause destruction than one within which the total value of the business, its role in the lives of the people involved with it, is the purpose."
MAC isn't only eco-minded; it also creates a sense of community by supporting artists with disabilities who get a chance to display their creations between the racks. Ben and Chris are on the board of Creative Growth, an Oakland nonprofit center providing programs and exhibition space for visionary artists with disabilities, and work by artists from the center is showcased in the store.
"If you're a small business, you need to think about what you can offer differently, and what we try to do is to bring community into the store," Chris says. "We try to make the process very transparent because everybody has less time to look at things, less time to sew. It's about feeling comfortable that you're getting something that's small, indigenous and that really has a soul and a person behind it."
Post-apocalyptic nihilism is so inflated in fashion right now -- feeling like a fem-bot in metallics is supposedly motivating. But at MAC and other eco-conscious outlets, the authentic concern for individuals as emotional beings is not just apparent, it's in the apparel. An oversize all-weather jacket by Final Home, in safety orange, comes with a minimalist teddy bear stashed in the pocket, highlighting the need for a futuristic transitional object. (Unfortunately, it's made of nylon.) International protest scarfs come ready to wear with messages of peace woven throughout.
"(We) consider ourselves part Kreskin and part Margaret Mead," Ben says. "We see these incredible clothes and say, my God, that's going to be so cool next year. But sometimes we have to kind of bend the fork, so to speak, because we have to figure out -- how does that fit in the real world?"
Terri Saul is a Bay Area freelance writer and artist.
This article appeared on page F - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
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