I identified as a person that cared
about the environment, but then,
when I was at Spirit Weavers a couple of years ago,
I took a class and at the end of class,
everyone had to go around and say what is one thing
you're going to do to be better to the environment,
and at that time, I was making this like Plexi jewelry,
and I was like, I have to stop making this jewelry.
I'm literally buying new plastic and making this stuff
out of it, and she said this phrase,
"What are you willing to risk?
"Are you willing to keep going to Starbucks every day,
"and risking that we kill all of the salmon?
"Are you willing to continue to buy things on Amazon
"and risk that we cut down all of the old girth trees
"because we need to have
"more cardboard to buy more products?"
Thinking about that, what am I willing to risk,
and what am I willing to do about it,
I was like, I need to think about the end of life
of all the items.
It was like, okay, cool, you want this dress.
Well, where did it come from?
Who made it?
What kind of dye was used?
Where was the fabric grown?
Who worked in a sweatshop to make this thing?
Now, my policy is, it has to be used,
and it has to be compostable.
That's kind of where I was coming from,
with this trying to live a zero waste life,
I was like, okay, you need to stop creating trash,
because everybody needs to stop creating trash,
we have to do something about this,
and we have to get really creative,
and we have to do it now.
Obviously, I drive a van, and so, I'm using fossil fuel,
but I've restructured the way that I travel.
Instead of just going out for one thing,
I'm trying to do as many things as I can on the way,
and being as strategic as possible about what I bring,
and where I travel and how I travel.
I was living in Los Angeles,
and I was really missing New Orleans.
I had moved out of there to be in a relationship,
and I missed the life I had, and the creativity,
and how affordable it was.
I didn't have a vehicle for 10 years,
and I definitely never thought about getting a van.
My friend said to me, "Who needs a man when you have a van?"
And I was just like, oh my God, she's right, ah!
But really, what that meant to me was you don't need
to rely on a man to do the things that you want to do
in your life, you can just do them.
I was like, wait a minute, if I get rid of my house,
get a storage unit, and get a van,
and then, only have a room during the winter,
when I actually need a room,
then, I would be able to see my friends more,
do all these gigs, way easier,
and it would cost me less, and that's how I've been living
for the past year and a half.
This is like extremely plush to me,
because I'm like, oh my god, I have most of my clothes,
multiple towels, and I get to sleep
in my own bed every night.
And so, I feel a lot more free, a lot more mobile,
and a lot more self-reliant.
I knew that I wanted to have enough space
to be able to sit up.
I found a woman that knows how to weld,
'cause I wanted to give my money to women,
in the process of doing this.
We took the seats out,
and then, built this frame, which actually comes out,
and is my bed when I live in New Orleans in the winter.
I basically was like, okay, you have X amount of space
on either side of these things to put the clothes,
and so, then, it was like, each category got a bag.
It's like, tops, you can only have however many tops
fit in this bag.
This is the drawer that I open most often,
and so, I'll have stuff that I access all the time,
like my tools, my jewelry, my computer stuff,
and like, bathroom stuff.
I got this cool box for my jewelry.
This was definitely an old sewing box,
and then, if I want to do my hair,
I tack up my little thing.
So when I was doing the project of not buying things,
you know, well, first of all,
I stopped going to thrift stores,
I stopped going to the flea market,
I just, I stop going into any establishment
that was about shopping or buying things,
and also, I wasn't tempted to get stuff for that quick
happiness fix, I was allowed to buy food,
I was allowed to buy gas,
and I was allowed to buy things that helped me
live a better zero waste life.
So for example, I got this bag at the thrift store
that is made out of trash,
so there's really no more upcycled thing
than a thrifted bag made out garbage.
These metal lunchbox containers.
Like I still use toilet paper for poop,
but as a woman, like I used a lot of toilet paper for pee,
and so, now, I don't have to do that.
I can just wash that on hot with my towels and sheets.
Instead of a Kombucha or a tea or something,
I have a little glass, and now I just have a cutting board
and a knife and a lemon squeezer,
and I'll make lemon water, if I really want
a delicious drink.
This little thing was the bottom of a skirt,
and I cut it out, and then, added a ribbon.
So this is just a little upcycled accessory thing.
These earrings I made.
One of my roommates in New Orleans
has this rope jewelry line.
He saves me the scraps.
It's so much more meaningful to me to have things
that are made out of things that would otherwise
go in the landfill, that I can now be like,
this is a beautiful piece of powerful jewelry.
Well, I've recently been trying to get rid of pants.
A friend of mine, a couple of years ago,
came over to my studio one time, and she was like,
Pants are a tool of the oppressor,
like they block our flow, like the energies,
and I was like, oh my God, she's right.
Pants, shorts, that was my thing.
I was like, skirts are so girly, like I don't know,
I just was caught in the gender paradigm
in all these different ways that we all are,
so then, it's been a couple years of me, now,
trying to do that.
Living in the van, it can be annoying
to get dressed sometimes,
and so, having things, I feel like I wear more dresses
because that's how long it takes to get dressed.
But kind of about the whole thing, like,
yes, it's more work to bring your own containers,
it's more work to be prepared,
and all the things about living a zero waste life.
There are things about van life that are mildly inconvenient
like the fact that I can't stand up,
but you know what?
Life goes on.
And I figure it out.
Sometimes, I have to lay down to put stuff on.
I just always gravitated towards weird clothes
and bright colors and busy patterns, and you know,
my parents were definitely not excited about it.
They wanted me to kind of be more normal looking, I think.
I never cared about that stuff, because to me,
shame was a very stupid and impractical emotion,
like why, this is what I like.
I'm wearing it, it makes me feel good,
so why am I going to change the way that I want to be,
to please what someone else might think?
Like that just never made sense to me.
I was just happy being myself,
I knew that me being myself wasn't hurting anybody,
and so, I never tried to put myself into a box.
I started this project coming up on two years ago now,
where I was like, I'm just going to wear all red,
every time I'm on my period,
as like a protest towards shame.
A lot of times, people are like, you look amazing.
Where are you going?
I'm like, I'm on my period, and then they laugh,
and they're kind of like,
whoa, like wasn't expecting that answer,
but then, they're also like, right on, okay.
The patriarchy doesn't want women to be empowered,
doesn't want us to be self reliant,
and to love ourselves, because when we don't love ourselves,
we're easier consumers, because we are filling
that void of self hatred with products and objects.
We are told our bodies are sinful, periods are gross,
men won't want to have sex with you,
you shouldn't let anyone know you're on your period,
you should hide it, and it should basically be a secret.
I am letting the world know that this is happening to me,
and if I saw someone and I knew they were on their period,
I would be more gentle with them.
You need to move slower, because you're releasing,
you're reflecting.
Capitalism doesn't want you to move at a slower pace,
'cause it wants you to be a productive, contributing member,
spending those dollars, making those dollars,
like getting it in the system, and so, by being
like, no, I'm actually going to love myself,
and celebrate the fact that I'm on my period.
You are transforming the way
that we interact with the system.
I definitely was not stoked about being a woman,
and then, learning more about my body,
and learning about my anatomy,
and learning about what it means to be connected
to the Earth, and to operate from more of a yin place,
the feminine, instead of the yang, fast, masculine place,
which is what our culture is dominated by,
that's what the patriarchy is, it's just that,
the male energy is the dominant energy.
It's like, we're just out of balance, and we need
to integrate more slowness and more self awareness
and anything that naturally happens,
by suppressing those, that's what leads
to disease, dis, ease.
Why is it that women don't have as many orgasms
and what is it about the way that we relate to sex
that's stopping us from being able to be as fully expressed
as men, which I don't think that men are as fully expressed
as they can be, because they're not operating
in this kind of mutual exchange.
It's that same attitude of taking.
I want, I desire, I want the woman to do this,
like I want the Earth to give me all these resources,
so that I can have these things,
and when we kind of back up, and we're like,
what does the Earth need?
The Earth needs me to let go of all this shame
so I can stop buying all this crap I don't need,
and I can actually start to take care of her.
That's been definitely the biggest lesson
of all of this, is just reconnecting
to what really matters, and reconnecting to my humanness,
and just reminding people, like yo,
being a human is an incredible experience,
and it's an immense responsibility,
because of these opposable thumbs and what we can do,
and make cars and planes and trains,
and the internet, and sex dolls.
We have to ask ourselves, should we be doing this?
Is this the best use of our time and energy,
and what happens when the Earth is filling up
with our pad and tampon waste because we don't want to deal
with cloth pads or a Diva cup,
or something reusable, because that means
we have to face the blood.
Instead of being like, ew, gross, throwing it away,
and not look at it, and not looking at our bodies,
all these ways that we're disconnected
from who we really are.
My vision for the world is that people would realize
that we are not the most important thing on this Earth.
We're not above nature, and we're not below it.
Our ancestors lived for hundreds of thousands of years
without electricity, Starbucks, Zappos.com,
like all these things that we now are like,
oh, that's life, it's just like, no.
That is absolutely not what life is.
If you think about it, trash is only, as a concept,
a couple hundred years old, and yet,
in just a short couple of hundred of years,
after burying our poop in the ground,
growing our own food, foraging for nuts and berries,
and being in communication with the seasons
and the cycles of Earth and our bodies and all of this,
we now, overnight, in the blink of an eye,
in the human history, have totally destroyed the planet,
and we just keep doing it.
What I want is for people to take a look outside
of their immediate environment,
and at the environment at large,
quiet yourself and listen to the sounds that are beyond
the manmade sounds of the city,
shed in your mind, like your clothes,
your role in society, how many Instagram followers you have,
and just be like, I am Earth.
Like, this is me.
How can I move through this world,
given the fact that we are in the patriarchy,
capitalism is raging on, and if we want to create
something new, we can start doing it.
Really get clear on what you need and want,
hold sacred to you, what matters to you,
and find a place where you want to put your energy
for the betterment of the planet, and for all people,
and the more people that can do that,
the better that we're all going to be,
because we're not going to be mindlessly just going
about their little program.
- Thank you for tuning into this week's episode
of our Closet series, featuring Corinne.
Hi, I'm Lily.
- And I'm Elisa, Lily's mom.
- And we're the creators of StyleLikeU.
Do you want to talk a little bit about our sponsor?
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- Bye everyone. - Bye. (blowing kisses)