THIRTY  BELOW: PROJECT ECO RUN-WAY culminates in an exhibition that presents examples of how people might use fewer resources to attain greater comfort despite frigid Wisconsin temperatures and winds that howl across Madison’s four frozen lakes.

The ingenious creations of middle school children, college students, faculty, and residents who dedicated themselves to this task were presented in a lively parade through town, followed by a glittering fashion-show at Edgewood College, the organizing institution. (We considered holding this part of the event in a walk-in freezer so that the bundled contestants wouldn’t suffer from heat exhaustion in the auditorium.) After marching across intersecting runways with music blasting and live video feed magnifying details and textures of their out(er)fits, each contestant demonstrated how they satisfied three criteria for determining the merits of clothing in the 21st century:

WARM: Functional was judged by Professor Majid Sarmadi from UW Madison

HOT: Ecological was judged by Karen Hitchcock Marketing and Communications Manager for Madison Environmental Group, Inc. and EnAct

COOL: Fashionable was judged by Linda Weintraub, curator of this project and author Avant-Guardians: Textlets for Art and Ecology

The clothing will be exhibited at the DeRicci Gallery, Edgewood College from January 11 – 30, 2009. I collaborated closely with Tracy Dietzl, Gallery Director.

CURATOR’S  STATEMENT by Linda Weintraub

Humanity’s first efforts to make clothing occurred more than 100,000 years ago in the cold climates of northern Europe and Asia. Neanderthals survived several ice ages because they learned to stay warm and dry by wrapping themselves in the thick, furry hides from hairy mammoths, bears, deer, musk oxen, and other mammals. This discovery initiated the process of designing and fabricating clothing. While humans have been investing their ingenuity in improving clothing for tens of thousands of years, we still have not perfected the products. “Thirty-Below: Project Eco Run-Way” challenged students, faculty, and community members to make the needed improvements.

Clothing remains an area for creative exploration to this day because the functions it is being asked to serve have increased over time. Neanderthals likely strove to fulfill a single criterion – UTILITY. If the clothing repelled water, insulated heat, blocked wind, allowed for movement, was light, durable, and smelled good it satisfied its wearers.

As civilization progressed, people discovered the expressive and formal potential of the materials out of which clothing is made. Delighting their sensibilities was added to utility as criteria for clothing. Such delight was achieved by arranging hue, shininess, smoothness, pliability of fibers and furs. In this manner STYLE was introduced. Creating new aesthetic combinations has been stimulating the human imagination ever since. Style allows clothing to convey tribal, national, religious, and professional characteristics. In addition, it provides opportunities to express such personal information as gender, age, marital status, wealth, social status, sophistication, individuality, and so forth.

Recently, ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT was added to the definition of “good” clothing. Thus, in addition to function and style, the merits of clothing depend upon whether a garment is produced, worn, and discarded according to the principles of sustainability. Environmental mandates oblige us to also seek answers to the following questions:

Are the resources used to make the clothes endangered?

Do they originate locally?

Are they sustainably grown or harvested?

Are they polluting during manufacture?

Are they adaptable for re-use?

Can they be disassembled to facilitate recycling?

Are they packaged in an extravagant manner?

How are the workers who participated in their manufacture treated?

Tracy Dietzl, Director of the DeRicci Gallery, deserves to be acknowledged for her efforts on behalf of this project. She was responsible for recruiting participants, raising funds, publicity, scheduling, staging, and contributing the excitement and good will that this project generated.