Welcome to Take Five, my recurring beauty and nutrition column on ELLE.com culled from a lifelong passion for animals, the outdoors, and feeling good. For me, the notion of taking five—whether the number pertains to ingredients in a food or just a moment to ask your body how it's feeling—can make all the difference. Consider this your 300-second-long wellness retreat.
"Hey Mom, I have an idea. Can you come here for a second?" I yelled as I came through the front door. Everything magical that happens in our "sewing den" begins with those words, and last week was no exception. I dropped 40 yards of old fabric down on the table in front of her. She looked at me with the kind of smirk that belies the actual excitement we both know she's feeling in these moments. "This week, it's muumuus," I told her. The words "I need five minutes to make a coffee"—a futile attempt at stifling her joy—exited Mom's mouth too quickly. This is just the game we play, that we've always played, because the truth is: nothing makes the two of us happier than a sewing project.
My love for clothing started very young, and not at all in the way you're probably imagining. You see, I had a mother who was constantly sewing together a mixture of hand-me-downs and scrap fabric to make new clothes. She was also clever enough to make it a game of sorts so that I took an immediate interest in the process and remained invested. Mom never let on that being a single parent didn't afford her the luxury of back-to-school shopping sprees. I never felt I was missing out on buying new outfits at the mall, because I didn't yet know that adding in a strip of leopard print velvet down the sides of my older brother's skater pants, in an attempt to feminize them, wasn't other kids' "normal."
To me, this was just the way it was done. It was also creative and exciting to play designer. Mom made these endeavors feel like a choice—we were choosing to cut up old T-shirts to make our own custom designs. Mom used specific language like "one of a kind" and "customized," so I always felt a sense of ownership and pride when kids asked me where I got my clothes. I distinctly remember her taking me to the bead store for yet another project we would work on together. This one involved capri pants, which, in my family, was another way of saying "jeans that had gotten too short."
See, I didn't realize at the time that bellbottoms that allowed my socks to show meant I'd outgrown my jeans because Mom always made it into a game of What Can We Make Next? We bought all kinds of beads that day and settled on the idea of sewing them to the bottom of my freshly chopped-to-the-knees jeans. As a result, I became known as a trendsetter, rocking an upcycled wardrobe before "upcycling" was even a term. For much of this time, I felt like the coolest kid in the world.
Then, the mean girls caught on. After fielding a few put-downs from girls who were just as insecure as I was on their quest to find their own identity, I came up with a new plan. Since neither of us could afford flashy new outfits, my best friend Brenda and I would combine our piggy banks—filled with the little money we made from birthdays and singing door-to-door—and share custody over all of our clothes. Fortunately, we went to different schools, so we knew we could pull it off without anyone knowing. Here's how it went: One of our parents would drive us to Forever 21, we'd pick out the coolest of the cool new outfits, split the bill, and keep a detailed journal of who wore what, when, while trading pieces of our wardrobes every couple days.
For a while the plan functioned flawlessly. Mondays, I wore the red pants with the white tank top and jean jacket; Brenda wore the crop top and glittery skirt. Tuesdays, we'd swap. We discovered only one issue, but it was a major one: Brenda and I weren't the same size. All of this outfit coordination happened right as I was approaching my first and only growth spurt. I was suddenly tall for my age, something I only experienced for a short period of time. I had long, gangly legs, no boobs, and giant feet. Brenda, on the other hand, was perfectly proportionate and didn't require the constant tailoring that I did. Our plan was short-lived, and I found myself, once again, back at the sewing machine with Mom. Perhaps that's where I was meant to be.
The truth is, we all end up craving the very same things we may have loathed as a child. I see this more and more the older I get. We mirror our parents, and we long for every nuance, every tiny reminder that we are their child. I am, without a doubt, my mother's child. From my ripped jeans to the 14 holes punched in my ears; from my passion for feeding everyone to the creative explosions that result in spontaneous furniture construction in our backyard; from taking in every helpless animal that needs to be bottle-fed to seeing the merit in making my own clothing and designing my own jewelry and bags; from East to West and everything in between, I am my mother's child.
Every project we excitedly take on together is peppered with all of those reminders, and sewing is no exception. I am currently navigating a new chapter of my life in the fashion industry with my line, Freedom of Animals. I'm attempting to create a sustainable line of products constructed from recycled materials. In doing so, I can't help but smile, because I'm reminded daily of my childhood. I'm beginning to truly understand consumerism—our desire for more styles, cheaper products, and a faster turn-around with a new model. I'm learning how the fashion industry should function, and even better, how it shouldn't: Mass-producing overseas while using toxic chemicals in unethically run factories is heartbreakingly destructive to our planet and all of its inhabitants. I'm comprehending all of this information and I'm wondering if Mom had it right all along. Maybe choosing to value what we already had and turning it into something new wasn't a way to appear "with the times" but rather a notion that was indeed ahead of its time. The difference is that we didn't know then what we know now, and we have the chance— individually and collectively—to use this knowledge for good.
Reusing, repurposing, and upcycling clothing is the future, and yet we were doing it then simply because that was our only option. So how can we get people to do that very thing, before it becomes our only actual option? Now is the time to allow our ingenuity to be born of necessity. Once we've sucked the planet dry of any and every resource available while we satisfy our need for "more, more, more," we won't be afforded the luxuries we mindlessly enjoy today. This is why I'm turning to you. Maybe we can all take a few seconds to think about what we have, what we want, and then somehow merge the two. Perhaps that pair of jeans that seems too small just needs a little bit of leopard print sewn down the sides, those old dish rags you're ready to throw away are calling for a second life as an outdoor dog bed, or that T-shirt you outgrew is begging to be cut up into headbands. Be creative, get inspired. Then send me some of your creations, and I'll send you some of mine.
