My New Favorite Denim

80s Party

I’ve had some of my best good times in a denim jacket that I got from JC Penny’s Bisou Bisou line when I was in college.  That jacket has been through thick and thin with me.  It has weathered many storms as well.  I remember I was wearing the jacket when my friends and I went to my first 80s party back when 70s parties were just beginning to go out of style.  I remember having that jacket on during one of my first trips to New York and being atop the Empire State Building.  It kept me warm on that windy day!

Harlem Stoop

When the jacket started to become more than worn and started to take on holes, I still kept wearing it because I found it so hard to let go.  I laugh because I was wearing it once when I went out to dinner with some girlfriends from grad school and someone at the table noticed that there was more than one hole in it.  One of the holes, I didn’t know was there.  I saw her expression as if she were wondering if I was broke.  Though grad school (and undergrad) can do that to you, I could actually afford to get a new jacket but I just wasn’t ready to replace my favorite denim jacket.  Good denim is so hard to find!

Phoenix Conference

Imagine my astonishment when I discovered Ralph Lauren’s new Denim and Supply line that was just released a few months back.  This line is Ralph Lauren’s take on the rugged outdoorsy and a lot of the pieces that are marketed as men’s can actually be unisex.  There are some great sweaters that can be paired with t-shirts I’ve adored that were both men’s. I actually worked as a seasonal employee at the Ralph Lauren Outlet store during the Christmas holiday and we would tell people who came into the store and asked, “Is this the men’s department or women’s?” that it was both.  Even though both men’s and women’s clothes are sold in that department, almost every time a woman would walk over to the men’s attire and pick something up in admiration. 

Denim & Supply

So when I went shopping for a new denim jacket, I did the very same thing.  I shopped Ralph Lauren’s Denim and Supply line.  My new denim jacket that I love just as much as the old one, came right out of the men’s department.  It came with the “lived-in” feel that I loved so much about my old jacket.  Parts of the jacket fabric are shredded just enough to make you think it’s been around but not so much that it needs stitching to keep the “damage” from growing.  The weave is tight yet relaxed and it even has the vintage look—yellowing of the fabric around the areas that touch the skin.  I love this jacket and originally bought it for one outfit—something I never do—but I’ve found myself pairing it with other outfits such as the one in the photo to the left.  In this photo, I paired my new favorite jacket with some orange corduroys that I also picked up from the Ralph Lauren Outlet store.  The sweater is from H&M and the jewelry (if you can see it) is a Betsey Johnson necklace and rings and Banana Republic bangles.  My handbag is from Cole Haan.  It’s a new favorite as well.  I didn’t realize how versatile it was when I bought it.  Those boots are Etienne Aigner that I’ve had in my closet for about five years.  I just got the heels fixed.

I would recommend Denim and Supply to anyone who values quality a little more than labels.  These clothes don’t carry the Polo Pony for which Ralph Lauren is so famous.  They are, however, very sturdy.  I bought a couple t-shirts that I live in on the weekends.  I originally bought them as a birthday gift for a guy friend but didn’t want to give them up after I tried them on.  They are so comfortable.  Some of the women’s attire is not my style but they do have both casual items and items that are a little dressier.  During the Christmas holiday season, they had a black velour blazer with satin lapels that I admired more than once.  I had to keep telling myself, “You already have a jacket like this” to keep from buying it.  Denim and Supply replaces Ralph Lauren’s Rugby line and though I hated to see it go, I welcome Denim and Supply with open arms.

An Evening With Danny Glover: Part 3

The last topic that I picked up during the Danny Glover session was the African debt crisis.  Honestly, I don’t remember what he was saying when he mentioned it.   I was taking so many other notes; I just scribbled this on the cover of my program and decided to look into it later.  Well now is later.

The debt of Third World countries has been a problem since the 1970s when the World Bank classified 60 countries as having $25 billion in debt.  Just over $11 billion of that came from countries in Africa.  In the 1990s, the US claimed that the Third World debt crisis was over because of the change in macro-economic criteria and the debt indicators of Latin America.  But what about Africa?  Many feel Africa’s debt is insignificant because their economies are smaller and most of their loans are not from western banks.  Instead African countries are heavily indebted to the World Bank and IMF. 

What does Africa’s debt mean?  With high debt levels come high poverty levels and, of course, poverty means poor healthcare and nutrition for children which lead to early death.  Noam Chomsky said, “Debt is a social and ideological construct, not a simple economic fact. Furthermore, as understood long ago, liberalization of capital flow serves as a powerful weapon against social justice and democracy. Recent policy decisions are choices by the powerful, based on perceived self-interest, not mysterious “economic laws.”  So why hasn’t more been done to teach these nations to fish instead of just handing it to them?

Some believe focusing on agriculture is the ticket to relieving the debt.  Increased agriculture productivity would develop the economy and all but eliminate the need for food imports.  This would free up funds for other essential investments.  Others push for an international bankruptcy court which will bring stability to the global economy and empower poor countries struggling to pay their debts.

What does this have to do with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr?  I tried googling him with “African debt” in the search engine which turned up nothing.  Quite frankly, this topic came up near the end of the session with Danny Glover and, after two hours, I had begun to tune the conversation out.  But it did grab my attention enough to research the topic and I’ve learned a lot.  I hope this post will educate someone and/or implore them to do their own research then seek out ways to Do Justice.

An Evening With Danny Glover: Part 2

So it took me so long to finish part two of this blog because I was trying hard not to make it sound like a research paper.  Very hard to do when research papers have pretty much been your life for the last three to four years.  The second point of Danny Glover’s session at Vanderbilt on which I picked up was his mention of President Jefferson’s stance on corporations undermining democracy.  Jefferson himself was a slave owner who thought the notion of owning slaves was immoral.  Yet he freed very few slaves from his two plantations.

At the time, slavery was used to grow and produce the institution of agriculture and created many organizations which thereafter became corporations.  Much like James Madison, Jefferson believed that given the chance, corporations could become too big and override the societies that gave rise to them.  What would Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. say about corporations today?  He’d probably say some of the same things that the Occupy Wall Streeters were saying in that the greed of corporations and the wealthiest one percent are disrupting the democracy of this country.

Democracy, plainly defined, is a form of government by which people choose leaders through voting.  However, if you can buy a congressman’s or a senator’s vote by throwing insane amounts of money behind immoral causes, does voting by the people really count?  How does capitalism hurt America?

It is without question that the capitalistic system in America must be transformed.  I recently read an article that mentioned four books that address radical and practical alternative visions for both the workplace and the economy more generally:  Rick Wolff’s Democracy at Work:  A Cure for Capitalism (2012), David Schweickart’s After Capitalism (2011), Gar Alperovitz’s America Beyond Capitalism:  Reclaiming Our Wealth, Our Liberty and Our Democracy (2011), and Dada Maheshvarananda’s After Capitalism:  Economic Democracy in Action (2012).  “One important aspect shared by each of these books is that each was either written, or expanded and reissued, in reaction to the crisis of 2008 and the Occupy movement of 2011,” states Hans G. Despain, the article’s author.  “All four books provide highly practical calls to action which are capable of transforming the economy…”

 

One of the questions Danny Glover asked at the point in the talk on MLK Day at Vanderbilt where I jotted down these notes was, “What makes us more human?”  In answering this question for myself, I think of things like being of service to others, having compassion and humility, and loving your neighbor as yourself—all clichés that seem to be lost in this society of being the biggest and the best at the cost of the middle class.  When does one exhaust having more?