damali ayo • gazing through big black eyes

Catch Me If You Can!
damali’s Upcoming Speaking Engagements


Autumn has arrived full throttle in Portland and has me excited for a new year of talks, presentations and workshops. I can’t wait to get on the road and see all of you from the stages and classrooms of your communities.

A few highlights:

September 6th I will be speaking at the Portland Creative Conference, on the genius of fashion and my personal creative process as a designer, artist and creative thinker. You can attend the conference at a discounted rate because you know me. Just enter the code SPEAKER for your registration and you’ll get $30 off your fee. ($69 for the day). The day proves to be worth it with a host of amazing speakers inspiring you about the creative design process.

Bitch Magazine has asked me to kick of their inaugural season of the “B-word” speaker series. That talk will be at PSU on September 30th. Should be damali at her most open. Definitely worth catching.

I’m also excited to speak at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Februrary. More details on that as the date approaches.

But mostly, I’m excited to find out where else I can go this year, meaning to you! I would really love to re-visit some of the campuses I’ve met over the last few years and bring new talks and energy to your communities. I’d also love to visit some of the places and people on this list that I haven’t met yet. This year starts a new relationship between me and SpeakOut.org as well as a return to self-representation which means I have a lot more flexibility with my schedule. Please drop me a note if you are interested in having me come for a visit.

Below are some topics that I’d love to bring to your community.

PRESENTATIONS

The Good Fight:
My life as a Social Change Artist
damali shares her inspirational journey through her many creative solutions to societal problems. This talk gives you living flaga sense of how all issues are connected, from the US revolution, to racial issues and reparations, to fashion and eco living. This talk shows each member of the audience that there are many ways to make a difference in their world. It is truly an entertaining and inspiring evening.

Change You Can Wear:
The Economy’s First Sliding Scale Clothing Company
Why create an eco-friendly clothing company that sells clothes on a sliding scale? What kinds of challenges do you face in this process? Is it possible to create social change through the capitalist economy? Is fashion radical or is it oppressive? Is community real? damali examines all these questions as she shares her path to creation of CROW Clothing, a truly 21st century business that challenges all the rules.

Living the Green Life
damali shares her user-friendly strategies for living a life that is gentle on the earth, easy on the budget, and rewarding to the spirit. Not your typical take on “green talk” damali shows, from racism to recycling, why “living right is living well” in all aspects of your life.

TRAININGS

I Can Fix It! Speaker Corps
damali passes the race-relations torch by training new speakers to give her talk on 10 practical solutions for how to create healthier, more productive racial interactions. Trainings will include a kit with all needed powerpoint slides and audio. First training is October in Portland, OR. Apply Now You can also arrange for a Speaker Corps Training in your community.

How to Make Conceptual Art
Participants design their own conceptual art projects through this interactive team-oriented workshop.

Yoga
In addition to giving a talk to your community, damali shares her love and ten-year practice of yoga in an hour long class. damali welcomes all interested parties as she leads you through a basic yoga practice that will leave you feeling more energetic, stretched, refreshed, and centered.

More info on all of these presentations and more at damaliayo.com

I’d love to see you.
To bring damali ayo for a presentation or training please contact:
damali@damaliayo.com
OR
programs@speakoutnow.org

Speaking Engagements

September
6- Portland Creative Conference: Fashion Keynote, Portland OR
30- Bitch Magazine Feminism and Pop Culture Series, Portland State University, Portland OR

October
(tba)- I Can Fix It Training Corps, Portland, OR apply now
21- Rockford College, Illinois

February
9- National Underground Railroad Museum, Cincinnati, OH

Next up...Your School or Center. Let’s work together to bring me to you!

Every season of project runway (and I’ve watched them all twice) has had challenges where they deal with uncommon fabrics. One of my favorite season three challenges was when they took the contestants to a recycling center and had them compose outfits from the “waste” materials they found there. That brought a win to the fabulous Michael Knight and a pass-over-but-should-have-won to the genius and overall winner of the season Jeffrey Sebelia. Michael created a lovely ensemble from peanut sacks with a wrap made of plastic bag. Jeffrey created an incredible dress out of paper, but, in my opinion did not win because he used so much paint to create the final product (including the cutest tromp l’oeil belt) while Michael used the products as-is.


This season, project runway made the leap from recycled materials to “green fabrics”. Interestingly enough, I didn’t know they were going to do this when I blogged last week on the EcoMetro Blog about sustainable fabrics. Guess I must have the finger on the pulse…

The episode was a bit of a disappointment, mostly because the designers complained about the fabrics the entire time, didn’t even call them by their proper name and in the end created some butt-ugly garments, giving the impression that green fabrics are hopeless and frustrating. I for one wish they had saved this challenge until they had weeded out some of the less-top-notch designers among the bunch.


But I’m thrilled they included it. It shows that green design is really garnering a place not only in the design world, but among Hollywood folks, who are all big fans of the show, It was also a relief to see that it illuminated some of the key challenges faced by eco-designers.

The challenge allowed the models to shop for the designers instead of the designers themselves, and the garment at had was to be a cocktail dress, for a young hip woman (the model herself). It was great to have the models shop based on what they liked- as the consumer is such a key part of the design process. On arriving at Mood Fabrics in LA, the models discovered what all eco-designers do- a bunch of jersey knits, obnoxiously bright colors, and three colors of hemp-silk (a natural beigey shade, black and a copper). Several models chose the hemp silk (shiny!) and returned with the same fabrics for several of the designers.


I happen to have some of that copper hemp-silk hanging in my studio in consideration for my fall designs. I’ve decided not to use it, not because of the problems it posed on the show, but because I’ve been told by the supplier that it is in limited quantity, and it’s also quite expensive. This too was an issue for the Project Runway challenge as many models arrived with only 2 yards of the fabric and thus several very short dresses were created. The fact that I actually have a sample of the fabric that they used on Project Runway for a challenge shows me how limited the supply of sustainable fabrics are.


In the end, one designer emerged way beyond the rest. Suede, who oddly talks about himself in third person, did a beautiful design that tickled the pants off of guest judge Natalie Portman, who looked like she was ready to peal the thing off the model and take it home. This design, by the way, will be sold on BlueFly.com, and if the work entailed is any indication, it’s not going to be cheap. Suede won because he wasn’t at all intimidated by the fabrics. He mixed the light hemp-silk with a red jersey knit, and didn’t exclude the jersey as “non-high end” as other designers did. He finished with a toile (which I question the sustainability of), and created a cute little number that even Heidi Klum would wear (if she were ten years younger, she claimed). His model, who had shopped solely on her taste, was thrilled with the product. The designers who argued and fussed with the hemp-silk, which even Michael Kors called “satin,” were foiled not by the fabric but by their own lack of courage and imagination.


This is exactly the challenge facing sustainable design. There’s tons of jersey fabric, much of it in ugly colors. In current design jersey is often limited to causal clothing (as one PR designer put it “this is t-shirt”) and frequently sewn overseas. Designers and production houses alike have become as spoiled on petrol as have American drivers. Several sewing houses I interviewed to sew my garments complained about the jersey and the organic factor blaming their sewing mistakes on “this fabric...this fabric.” Two refused to handle jersey at all and one sated “no one sews jersey anymore except in Asia.” However when you move into wovens- the selection becomes even more limited, in style and supply.


This is also why sustainable designers are some of the most creative types around. Working with limited resources is what every Project Runway challenge is about and those of us in sustainable fashion do that every day that we sit down to create a new garment for our collections. It’s an incredible and fulfilling challenge but not for those short on ideas, patience, or courage. As Matisse once said “creativity takes courage” and that is what Suede showed in his incredible creation in this episode. He also did it all without panic or complaint.

I’m excited that this episode aired, though I wish they had done more to explain and showcase the fabrics, and that they had highlighted some of the really good designs that came out of the challenge- as there were several that were innovative, chic and highly wearable. I hope that this helps textile designers see that the demand for eco-friendly fibers is high and that the selection increases as a result of this fantastic exposure.

I also hope that Project Runway continues to examine eco-friendly design in their line-up of challenges. I’d love to help them do a “scrapology challenge” where they are required to make a new garment out of all the scraps that they didn’t use from the previous several challenges. It would be a great way to show that re-using and conserving are as much a part of eco fashion as are hemp, soy and bamboo.

To read more, see and shop for sustainable fashion, please visit my clothing line CROW Clothing.