What kind of hairstyle have you always wanted? Phyllis Wilson takes readers shopping for wigs.

A friend of mine, Annette, is an active single parent who has more than 75 wigs. Every week she sports a different one! Short, medium, long, curly, straight, pink, blue, braided, her wigs range from 100% real human hair to synthetic and even blends. Now mind you, she has a very full head of hair that is her own so I asked her why she always changed her hairstyle and she said, “I love wiggin’ it!”

A woman shops for wigs at Zara Wigs.

Celebrities have set the trend for wearing wigs/alternative hair. Today, anyone can instantly and temporarily change their look with minimal effort. So I asked Annette share her expertise with me and take me wig shopping because I was in the mood for a change, a new look, a new style. I wanted an alternative hair option that would allow me to enjoy a hairstyle that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to achieve with my own hair.

Off to her favorite wig store we went and all the sales associates greeted Annette by name. She explained to them that she wanted to adorn me in a new wig or two. My eyes got large as I was whisked to a chair and my hair brushed back to begin the wig extravaganza.

I perused the store where there were over 1,000 styles of wigs: women’s wigs, men’s wigs, children’s wigs, African American wigs, cancer wigs, headband wigs, 3/4 wigs, medical wigs, half wigs, top wigs, costume wigs, Halloween wigs, hairpieces, men’s hairpieces, and men’s toupees. For hygiene purpose, I had to don a nylon stocking wig cap and then Annette began to canvas the shop for the perfect wig. I tried bobs and braids, poufs and ponytails, extensions and front lace wigs. I even tried afro wigs, dreadlock wigs, and salt and pepper wigs! I tried Twiggy wigs, Dora wigs, Elan wigs and Bonita wigs.

As each new style was pulled and tugged and pinned, I took on a new personality. I even pranced around the shop gazing in the mirrors at my new looks. Giddiness filled the hair as I finally decided on three: Jackie, Rina and Celia. I loaded up on accessories: wig spray and shampoo, wig brush and comb, pins, and Styrofoam heads to hold the wigs.

Apprehensive, of course, I struggled while trying to decide when to first don my new style. I decided to venture to the movies with my girlfriend, Kim, wearing Celia wig, a side-parted bob with feathered layers. As I waited nervously in the foyer of the theater, I saw Kim walk right by me. I grabbed her arm and said, “Don’t you recognize me?” She looked startled and said, “Do I know you?”

I told her I was Phyllis and she gazed at my hair and replied, “What have you done to your hair? I did not recognize you.”

We both laughed because I had definitely gotten a new look — a new style just by wiggin’ it!

Photo Credit

“A woman shops for wigs at Zara Wigs”

Wiggin’ It is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

When you’re a burlesque darling like Rosie Bitts, you meet the most fascinating people.

Rosie talks with another one of the wonderful people in her neighbourhood. Rad Juli of Rad Juli Custom Design — and music and burlesque fame — is a multi-talented renaissance women who always has a multitude of projects on the go. Rosie takes a peek in her studio and gets to see some of her most recent project.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Photo Credits

All photos © Rad Juli Custom Design. All Rights Reserved.

Video Credit

Keith Sonic www.sonicshoots.com

Rosie Bitts Brings You Burlesque Fashion is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

I suffer from a rather rare ailment I sometimes call the “classical bug”. This is characterized by total fascination with all things ancient, especially those concerning the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations.

Spouses of those who have the “classical bug” must be very tolerant souls indeed. Witness my long suffering wife Krista who has submitted to such indignities as having her face immersed in slimy goo to indulge my desire for a pair of Greco-Roman busts.

She even listens with interest when I tell her all about my new ushabti (an Egyptian burial figurine), Roman unguentarium (an ancient glass ointment jar) or Philip II sestertius (a large 3rd century Roman bronze coin which actually has a picture of a moose on its reverse). On vacations she follows patiently or lets me go off on my own to spend hours sorting through antique shops and museums.

To my credit, when we got married I did not insist that the ceremony be performed in Latin, nor did the justice of the peace have to wear a toga. We did, however, have a pair of Celtic harpists in attendance, adding a certain flavor to the proceedings. Krista made one additional concession.

I hate rings, but I love looking at ancient art. A plain wedding band just did not turn my crank, so to speak. My (at the time) prospective spouse asked what exactly I might find suitable for the ceremony.

After much thought I decided that it would be unlikely I would find an ancient ring that would fit my hand, and the thought of modifying one was somehow sacrilegious. Putting an ancient intaglio (an incuse relief carved gemstone) into a modern reproduction of a Roman signet ring seemed a reasonable alternative. I like the idea that intaglios were often carved by the same people who did engraving for the Roman Mint, the so-called “celator”.

My next problem was where to find an appropriate intaglio. When I decided to have our busts done in Roman style, we decorated the pieces with real ancient Roman jewelry, much as was done in ancient times.

I perused the catalogs of various dealers and found an English dealer who offered the perfect pieces. Krista’s bust, looking the perfect second century C.E. Roman matron, now sports an attractive gold earring complete with a green stone (her birthstone is the emerald) and a tiny filigreed heart. My toga is “held in place” by a two thousand year old fibula.

I sent off another query to Mr. Martin who came through in the pinch once more. Shortly after my letter was sent, a lovely red carnelian intaglio arrived. It was engraved in Third Century C.E. style with, on the right, a well-muscled Sun god, “soli invicto”, seated facing left. On the left stands a curvaceous Moon goddess facing right. Between the two is a star and a crescent moon. I marveled at how so much detail could be conveyed in such a small space. This was the ideal pattern for a wedding ring. Could the jewel have originally been in a ring or pendant intended as a gift from one ancient Roman spouse to another?

The next step was to find a jeweler who would set the stone. A local goldsmith, Glenn Fawcett, did the kind of work I liked. Entering his shop I told him I had “an old stone” I’d like set.

“Nineteenth Century?” he asked. “No,” I replied, “a bit older”. His eyes lit up. “Oh, it must be eighteenth Century then.” “Actually, no” I answered. I showed him the stone and said it was approximately 1700 years old. Glenn was quite intrigued, especially since this was about 1500 years older than any other gem he’d worked with. We designed a ring very much in the style of a Roman signet ring.

A month later the ring was ready. When we entered the shop and looked at it, it was perfect. Glenn had even counter-marked his work in a manner which would amuse any collector of ancient Greek or Roman Republican coins … with a tiny faucet!

The ceremony went flawlessly and the ring slid easily onto my finger as the harpists plucked a Celtic wedding song.

Two years later our union was blessed with the birth of a beautiful little girl. Her name is Ariana, which means “silver” in Gaelic, “holy” in Greek, and is the Latin form for King Minos’ daughter, Princess Ariadne. (You expected maybe Tiffany?) Believe it or not, my wife picked the name out!

Photo Credits

All photos © George Burden

“Wedding Ring”

“Photo of life-sized busts of Geroge and his wife Krista (George is the one on the left).”

“A small bronze satyr, the amorous half man half goat of classical mythology.”

A Classical Romance is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

I rented the movie Wall Street this week. Do you remember it?

It was an Oscar-winner from 1987, directed by Oliver Stone and starring Michael Douglas as an incredibly wealthy but unscrupulous trader. It also starred Charlie Sheen as a young, desperately-eager-to-make-it-big stockbroker. I wanted to remind myself of the movie and its plot because the sequel Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps has just been released into the theatres, with Michael Douglas playing the same character of Gordon Gekko.

In watching the original, I found it to be just “okay,” with a predictable plot line. But that’s not to say I didn’t enjoy myself. Because, let me tell you, I did!

No, it wasn’t from chuckling at the brick-sized cell phones or the largesse of the women’s hair styles. It was the countless handsome young men in this movie — all wearing suits. Handsome. Tailored. Suits.

It made me yearn for a time when men wore suits regularly. Now I only see a man in a suit (including my own) at weddings or funerals. And it’s a real shame, because a suit on a man is a beautiful thing.

And then I got to thinking about this whole “business casual” thing. Who came up with business casual anyway? I’d like to know so that I can tell them what a major disservice they have done for me — and women everywhere.

I think men look good in two types of clothing: casual (Levi jeans and a t-shirt) or formal (a good suit). No matter what size a man is, I think these two types of wear can be universally flattering.

Notice that this doesn’t include “business casual.” I have yet to see a man look good wearing “business casual.” Have you? All I seem to see are men that look like this:

Neither the “proper” or “improper” forms of business casual in this image do anything for me.

I really just think business casual was a bad idea. Even for women. I would personally prefer to wear a business suit every day. It would actually make things so much simpler for me because one never needs to worry about trying to match a suit together! Just go into a store, buy the suit — voila! — an outfit. Same process applies for the closet in the morning. Love it.

In fact, the idea of working in a “suit only” environment is so appealing, I would consider it a major employment perk. More handy, certainly, than a gym facility I would never use anyways (despite many a lofty intention otherwise!). Besides, a gym wouldn’t even be necessary if people wore well-tailored suits that comfortably covered any of the lumps and bumps our middle-aged bodies may have.

Instead, one never knows these days what kind of atrocities they will face when walking into the office … will it be leggings? flip flops? skinny jeans? or just the sad, defeated look of men in pleated khaki pants.

Business Casual: Wall Street Awakens Nostalgia for Sharp-Dressed Men is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

One of the neighborhood councils here in San Diego has been putting on free outdoor concerts this summer, and my wife and I have found them to be a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon. We were at one of those concerts this weekend, having a picnic supper with some friends and their kids while we listened to the music, when out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a girl walking by in a ridiculously short skirt.

Now, the phenomenon of the girl walking by in a short skirt is something that pretty much all men are familiar with. Most men have even developed strategies for how to deal with this phenomenon without seeming as lecherous as, well, we are.

Some guys do this by developing their peripheral vision so they never have to look directly at the girl. Some use sunglasses or other barriers to conceal the path of their gaze. Others have mastered the “mental snapshot,” taking in and perfectly storing all the details with only a split-second glance, to be recalled and appreciated after the moment has passed.

I’m no different, of course. As feminist, father, and husband, I’ve tried to train myself not to look, but it’s difficult — revealing clothes are like magnets to the eye. I used to feel guilty about it, but I’ve come to realize that it’s just as true for women as men.

If anything, the women I know are even more drawn to looking at scantily clad women than the men are.

What’s more, they’re not even subtle about it — women will actually fully turn around in their chairs to stare, something I’ve rarely seen a man do. Men don’t often realize that women look at other women, probably because men are too busy concentrating on making it look like they’re not looking, themselves.

So there I was, having a nice picnic with my family and friends, enjoying the music and the nice weather, when I see this woman in a short skirt walk by. And it’s not just a short skirt; it’s the shortest skirt I’ve ever seen. Even calling it a skirt requires a pretty inclusive definition of the word “skirt,” because I have — no exaggeration — seen belts that were nearly as wide.

There was a point in my life when, presented with the sight of a skirt so short that it didn’t cover even half of its wearer’s bottom, I would have mentally turned into one of those drooling, wolf-whistling characters from a 40’s-era Looney Tunes cartoon.

What about now? Was my first reaction to get excited or turned-on? Nope. My first reaction was to think, “What is the point of that?”

My second thought? “Oh God, Oh God, what if I have a daughter some day?”

I don’t know exactly how or when it happened, but it appears that some time in the past few years I must have grown up. Fancy that.

Photo Credits

“Life Magazine, March 13, 1970: scanned in four sections and merged” rchappo2002 @ flickr.com. Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.

Stellar Bella Micro Mini

The Short, Short, Short Skirt is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

Who wears short-shorts?

Not my daughter, that’s who. But if the racks of summer shorts in children’s clothing stores are any indication, then she might be the only child in our neighbourhood who isn’t sporting short-shorts.

Who Wears Short-Shorts? is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

When it is cold outside, we automatically think body heat may be lost through our heads, so we cover our heads with hats. And we all know babies, in particular, lose heat rapidly through their heads, so we ensure their heads are covered. Initially, headgear offered protection from the elements and helped prevent injury from falling rocks or masonry.

Later, head coverings became symbols of status or authority. Soon after, hats progressed to become not only parts of uniforms, but also as art forms. But there is more to the story.

I recently ventured to a local cafeteria and noticed two men walk in with hats on their heads. There was a certain air about these men and even a confident swagger. So I had to find out more. I ventured over to their table and asked them if I could join them for lunch. They gladly accepted and we began a leisure lunch on the subject of men and their hats.

When asked why they wore hats, the two men said that they were stylish, that their fathers had worn hats and that they had been wearing hats since high school. One gentleman even commented that “owning a nice hat is like owning a nice tie” and that he wants his hat to make a statement.

A hat is the most noticeable fashion item anyone can wear and I am flattered when a man tips his hat to me.

I am also enamored and listen attentively as the men rattled off names of hats like: LBJ, Pirates, Fedora, Dobbs, Stetson, Clint Eastwood, Justin’s, Borsalino, Christy’s, Apple, Cowboy, Bucket, Felt, Beaver, Straw and Tams. This reminded me of conversations with my girlfriends about purses (Kate Spade, Coach, Dooney & Burke, etc.). The names flew off their lips fluidly as they reminisced.

And just as varied as the hats are the brim styles, including the raw edge, under welt edge, upper welt edge, bound edge and wrip edge. The upper and under welt on a brim increases the firmness to the hat edge, helping the brim hold its shape longer and better, which will reduce the risk of damaging the shape of the brim from daily handling. The edging of a hat brim can be designed several ways. It may be left plain (known as a raw edge), it may be welted, or it can be bound with ribbon.

Even the upkeep on a hat is interesting, as you typically take your hat to a milliner to steam clean and then shape, all while you wait. Alternatively, you can remove surface dirt from a straw hat with a clean damp cloth. And you store your hat either in their box or upside down and in plastic wrap to extend the life of the hat. Also, you never place the brim of a hat on a flat surface. This could cause the brim to flatten and lose its shape. Nor do you handle the hat by the crown. If your hands are dirty or oily they will leave spots on the fabric. You remove and put on the hat by the brim.

Finally, never leave your hat in a hot car or closet, as heat causes the sweatband to shrink, and then the hat will no longer fit. To keep the sweatband dry of perspiration and oils, occasionally turn down the sweatband to dry. One gentleman swore by his hat as it covers his baldness, yet both agreed that you don’t wear a hat inside.

Photo Credits

“It is impossible to travel faster than the speed of light, and certainly not desirable, as one’s hat keeps blowing off.” ChernobylBob @ Flickr.com. Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved

Men and their Hats: Function, Fashion, Art is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

In “Humans At The Movies,” That Kind Of Girl examines some of the film and TV tropes that define our ideas of what it means to be human. Absurdly high-stakes poker game, anyone?

The Role: The kind of glitzy, frivolous shopaholic who commands an army of store employees to hold her Birkin while she tries on half of the inventory. Think Elle Woods in Legally Blonde, Cher in Clueless, or, um, everybody in Real Housewives of Orange County.

The Actor: My relationship with shopping is fraught. On the one hand: ooooh, shiny! On the other: when I actually take the time to buy clothes in a brick-and-mortar store, some combination of the inconvenience, a sense of extravagance, and all the usual body-image woes tend to send me scuttling into the corner dressing room and rebuffing all the sales staff’s helpful advances.

The Scene: Nordstrom’s in my local galleria, on a sparkling Sunday morning. The store was surprisingly empty — side effects of the recession? Or, more likely, the Ladies Who Lunch were still brunching — so the moment I sashayed in, the saleswoman started a-fawnin’.

My objective for the day: an ensemble for a friend’s wedding. My usual approach would be to grab anything remotely my size from the sales racks and barricade myself in fitting-room Siberia. Instead, when the saleswoman asked what I was looking at, I crowed, “Cocktail dresses. All of ‘em.”

The saleswoman started skipping through the racks and loading dresses in my arms like I was a hot air balloon in danger of floating away. When the sequins started skimming my chin, she gave a little gasp of self-reproach. “But of course we’ll get you started in a room!” she simpered. “I’ll bring in more.”

Cue half an hour of beads and sequins, froth and frippery. Only once during the sartorial orgy did I accidentally glimpse a price tag. Holy frig, guys. Apparently there is a whole new digits place that I didn’t know about.

As I narrowed it down to two choices, the salesgirl called in a seamstress to help make the selection. The two women’s hands flew deftly over my ensemble, tucking here and tightening there — adding womanly little touches to me, as though I were a sloppily appointed end table. The whole time, they cooed (“This compliments your gorgeous curls!” “Oh, your skin is just glowing!”), and after a moment I just closed my eyes and let their voices wash away my frizzy curls and pasty skin.

If you promise people money, they pretend to love you.

I knew in reality I would have to settle for the cheaper of the dresses (and scrimp to buy it, no less), but when the salesgirl offered to fetch a pair of stilettos so I could see the dress with a little height, I didn’t hesitate. The shoes cost more than my couch. And I enjoyed every twirl in them.

The Review: If I had the fiscal means to pull off this movie cliché every day, then — well, I’d be BlackBerrying this post from the dressing room of my local Armani outlet, for starters. As for real-life application, though, I think this role is as fabulous to slip into as that delicious silk sundress. Being fussed over every once in a while is as harmless as it is exhilarating. And even when your budget is more Charlotte Russe than Chanel, at least take employees up on their offers to grab you a different size or a few more styles. It helps take the sting out of angsting about your underarm jiggle.

Photo Credits

Shopaholic’s Closet  © pinkamby

Humans At The Movies: Maxing Out Daddy’s Credit Card is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

A glittering prize of platinum and gold signifies the enduring bonds between Italy’s most exclusive fashion houses and the merino sheep farmers of Tasmania, and the enduring international esteem of Tasmania’s finest wool.

The Ermenegildo Zegna Perpetual Trophy — awarded to the champion superfine merino fleece the at the annual Midland Agricultural Association Show — was created in 1963 as a sign from the Zegna family that they deemed Tasmania’s best wool ideal for their fabulously expensive men’s suits.

Equally, it showed the Zegnas were keen to forge a lasting relationship, so that they remained foremost in the minds of the leading Tasmanian wool producers.

As a perpetual prize, the Zegna trophy now sits inside a locked glass cabinet within the Tasmanian Wool Centre at Ross, though on 13 occasions during annual show judging day it has been placed in the hands of Jim McEwan, the most decorated of the midlands wool producers.

At 81, Jim draws a modest delight from the accolades that come with winning the Zegna trophy, which he took out again in 2006. However, he’s been running sheep long enough to have seen as many tragedies on the land as triumphs.

“Those Zegna suits might be glamorous, but there isn’t any glamour in this game,” he says sagely, stepping from the cab of a truck in his customary work garb of flannel shirt, battered woolen jumper and scuffed boots. Even now, there’s still a solid day’s work to be done by the veteran farmer.

By the time Tasmanian artist Stephen Walker was commissioned to create the perpetual trophy at a cost of £2240, Zegna was already a committed buyer of the highest quality wool from Tasmania’s midlands region. The Italians had become familiar with the superior Tasmanian fleeces through English merchants, and creating the trophy ensured that competition between the growers intensified, so that the quality would remain consistently high.

And so it has, though rivals from across the island’s midlands pastoral region still find it hard to edge ahead of the quality of fleeces from Jim McEwan’s three-year-old ewes.

The secret, Jim says, is in the nature of Trefusis, the rambling 7000 hectare property on which he runs a flock of 31,000 sheep. It’s wild country, running through undulating patches of native grassland, open plains and craggy woodland beside the Macquarie River; there are also sections of controlled paddocks with lush green feed on which ewes rear their lambs before being returned to the open grazing land.

This property was the first in the region to experiment with aerial seeding in the 1940s; Jim loaded an old Tiger Moth with sacks of seed and scattered them from the air over sheer hillsides to ensure plentiful feed in the rugged terrain. Mercifully, despite its wild nature, the region is free of thorn bushes and harsh scrub that would tear at the sheep’s fleeces. This is why the midlands Saxon merino fleeces are among the cleanest in the world — and are thus coveted by the world’s leading woolen mills for their premium garments.

Jim looks with an affectionate eye over his sprawling property, which has been in the family since 1922. He has run Trefusis since he was 17, called back from his schooling at Scotch College in Launceston, in northern Tasmania, after the sudden death of his father.

These were lean times; wool prices were low, rabbits running in plague proportions, the land was dry and feed was scarce. So when the accolades for superior fleece quality started arriving during the mid-1960s, and international prices for wool began to rise in the same era, these were especially sweet tonics. “It was certainly time for things to turn around,” Jim comments dryly.

When the McEwans won their first midlands show trophy in 1966, the Zegna family invited Jim and his wife to Venice for two weeks. He made good friends with the late company founder, Ermenegildo. “They were very nice, humble people,” Jim recalls.

The farmer from the Ross district in wild Tasmania was taken in first class comfort to see the Zegna company mills and the exclusive garments they produced; Jim, however, would have liked to meet more of the Italian wool classers and heard trade stories about their various trials with fleeces.

The Italians have also visited the Trefusis property many times and remain good buyers of the McEwan’s premium fleece. Angelo Zegna, the president of Ermenegildo Zegna Group (a company earning $63 million annually and hoping to break the billion dollar mark by 2010), and his nephew Paolo Zegna, the current CEO of and president of their textile division, are sporadic visitors.

They go into the shearing sheds, and are always polite, though Jim would like it if they were perhaps more critical of what they saw. “They visit the sheds but don’t tell us what they’d like to see happening,” Jim says. “So we just keep doing what we’ve been doing for years. Still, I suppose that if they didn’t like something, they’d tell us soon enough.”

While the long run of trophy triumphs has put the McEwan’s property onto the world stage — and attracted the interest of more international buyers, beyond the Zegna corporation — such fame does little to elevate the price of the fleeces in the total Trefusis wool clip of about 500 bales each year. The world wool market is currently static, well down from its 1988 peaks that saw a world record price of $320 a kilogram paid at Tasmania’s Campbell Town wool auctions by Japanese textile mill Fujii Keori Ltd of Osaka.

However, the fame of Zegna trophy wins has put a hefty price on McEwan’s rams. Each is worth at least $1000, with the top rams fetching as much as $4000. Buyers come from New South Wales and New Zealand, though the Kiwis are now more inclined to buy ram semen rather than bear the heavy cost of freighting a live animal across the Tasman Sea.

These rams are descendants from the original Saxon merino flock that came to Tasmania aboard the Clansman in 1829. These were individually selected by Scottish gentlewoman Eliza Forlong, who walked through Saxony (modern Germany) searching for merino sheep capable of providing the best possible fleeces in her intended new home of Australia, then she herded them to Hamburg to await shipping.

Eliza trusted the initial flock in the care of her 16-year-old son William, while she continued to search for more of the esteemed Saxon merino sheep. The initial flock was actually bound for New South Wales, but when the Clansman docked for supplies at Hobart, a canny Governor, George Arthur, convinced the young William to accept a large land grant near the new garrison town of Campbell Town.

Eighteen months later Eliza arrived with her husband John, son Andrew and more sheep, but soon grew upset that they could not obtain more land, clashed repeatedly with government officials and eventually moved across Bass Strait to the Port Phillip district in Victoria during 1838, selling 4000 merinos to the Taylor family of the renowned Winton stud. This became the basis of the district’s huge Saxon merino flock.

As the historical home of superfine merino wool in Tasmania, Campbell Town became the original focus for wool commerce, and staged Tasmania’s first wool judging show in 1839. The Midland Agricultural Association Show is still held in Campbell Town, proudly referred to as the longest continually running agricultural show in the British Commonwealth. And this is why it sticks in their craw that the Zenga trophy keeps going to sheep properties at Ross.

“Yeah, they get a bit prickly about that,” says Jim McEwan, allowing himself a dry half-smile. “That why there’s always a bit of added fire in the football matches between the towns.”

Tensions come to a head between the midlands towns on show judging day in June each year. The judges award fleece quality out of 100 points; they sift through about 100 superfine skirted merino fleeces to find a winner.

So that laymen can begin to appreciate the differences between different fleeces, an interactive display is made available to more than 75,000 visitors each year that file through the Tasmanian Wool Centre in Ross — a bicentennial project opened in 1988 with the help of all the district’s major wool producers.

Among the displays of winners’ ribbons and shearing memorabilia are samples of different wool types and grades, so that you can squeeze and sense the slightly greasy lanolin feel of a raw fleece.

You can see the different types of wool from different breeds — English Leicester, Lincoln, Suffolk, Poll Dorset, Cheviot, fine black, Saxon merino. And nuzzled close to the stately Zegna trophy is a wool bale with Trefusis stenciled across its side.

Some locals joke that the stencil should be inked across the side of the trophy, but Jim McEwan would never be so bold to make such a claim. “The trophy’s nice, but really it’s the district that benefits from all this,” he says, casting a glance out across his property to the green horizon. “And so it deserves to.”

Photo Credits

“Grazing Merinos” Produce: Stuff I Make

“Ermenegildo” My Executive Life

“Ewes and Lambs” Tasmanian Wool

“Tasmanian Wool Centre” igougo.com

The Golden Fleece: Italian Fashion, Tasmanian Wool is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

How much time has to go by before you can look back at something you did and recognize that it was a little ridiculous?

It was sometime in the 90s that we took a good hard look at the 80s and realized just how awful shoulder pads and bangs hairsprayed so high they looked like little satellite dishes were. It took the British hundreds of years to stop wearing those silly wigs everywhere. (Though, that might have coincided with the improved treatment for syphilis…) On a personal level, it’s hard for me to look at pictures from high school without slapping my palm to my forehead and exclaiming What was I thinking?!?!?!

I always figured it was at least several years before you could really let yourself see how silly you’d been. So imagine my surprise when last week I discovered a much more recent occurrence for myself.

About two years ago I learned how to sew, and for a while it ate up all of my spare time. I got this great book, Generation T: 108 Ways to Transform a T-Shirt by Megan Nicolay. It’s 108 things to do with old shirts. Stuff like cutting the collar and sleeves off, adding random drawstrings, and weaving scraps of other t-shirts into a decorative design up the seams.

Slicing and dicing t-shirts quickly became one of my favourite things to do, and I had several weird and wonderful designs that were staples in my wardrobe. I wore those suckers right up to the end of last summer, and then they went into a bag to make room for winter sweaters.

This bag came out of the closet recently, and I was horrified to see these cut up and desecrated t-shirts. Shirts I’d worn with pride as recently as six months ago! To work! Why did no one tell me how shabby they looked? WHY!?!?!?!

I don’t know what changed. Certainly not my sense of style. I still don’t have one of those. Maybe my sense of shame?

What I have learned from this is that not only can I not trust myself to pick out my clothes, I can’t trust anyone around me either. I could call out at least three people who I know saw how stupid those shirts were. Who probably went to the bathroom to shake out the cringe every time they saw me wearing one. To these people I say this: next time, use your words. TELL ME.

Lesson learned: T-shirts are not a particularly exciting article of clothing. However, going all Frankenstein on them does not make them better.

Photo Credits

William Gore by Christian Friedrich Zincke

“Generation T – 108 ways to transform a T-shirt” book cover

The Great T-Shirt Massacre is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN