An early Happy New Year

Some updates from Three Stone Steps for the end of the year and the decade:

Starting early next year, the 10th to be exact, I'll be on the road to meet with our existing fair trade producers in Cambodia, Vietnam, and the Philippines. I'll also be on the lookout for great new unique, functional, and eco-friendly accessories. Please stay tuned. I think there will be great new items in store.

During that time, we will not be processing orders, so if you have your heart set on something, best to order it as soon as possible. We'll be back to processing orders by the third week in February.

If I'm not updating this blog, please follow me on Twitter, @threestonesteps, or on www.threestonesteps.com's Facebook fan page.

We're thinking of beginning a dedicated travel blog--ok. I realize that I have trouble keeping this one updated, so I can't imagine how I'll deal with two of 'em!-- but will definitely let you know if that happens.

So, in the meantime, Happy New Year! I'll be back here soon.

Miss Landmine and other "beauty" contests

The always interesting site, Global Voices, had an especially fascinating post about the Miss Landmine contest being canceled in Cambodia. As detailed in a statement in The Mirror, an overview the Khmer language press, The Ministry of Social Affairs Veteran and Youth Rehabilitation does not support the Miss Landmine contest, because it can create misunderstandings among the public towards the honor of disabled people, especially of disabled women. And, while I might not have worded it that way, I definitely agree.

Let me give some background. Many, if not most, of Three Stone Steps products are made in Cambodia. And, most are made by landmine and polio victims. In fact, Three Stone Steps' silk and cotton producer has horribly disfigured hands due to something that happened to her during the Khmer Rouge reign of terror. She has never showed the slightest bit of discomfort with her appearance. In fact, why not just let you see her? (She's the one in the gray shirt, and apologies for the bad photo of her):



Now for a very long aside:

Whether I like it or not, Three Stone Steps, which sells bags, wallets, scarves, and jewelry rolls, etc., is part of the "fashion" industry, or at least part of the "fashion accessory" industry. And, as a progressive and "green" business, I often gasp when some of my "eco-fashion" cohorts shoot photos of their organic cotton shirts or bamboo bamboo bags using conventional fashion magazine models and poses. Really, the way I look at it, if you're going to take on conventional clothes and accessories, you may as well take on the conventional way that they're shown.

But, now back to the the Miss Landmine contest. According to an article in The Guardian last year, the pageant was started by a male film and theater director from Norway. (According to the article, Norwegians find beauty pageants very "politically incorrect." And, while I wouldn't use a loaded term like "political correctness," I also find them sexist and dehumanizing.) The pageant organizer thought that juxtaposition of a pageant and landmines was theatrical. He's right. It got attention. It got me to write a blog post on it. But, of course, that doesn't mean it's right. It's just as exploitative as regular beauty pageants, and on top of that, it reinforces Western notions of beauty.

So, in honor of the canceled Miss Landmine Pageant, below are pictures of some of the truly beautiful women who create Three Stone Steps' products:

Except for the final photo, all of these photos are taken in the outskirts of Phnom Penh:

At the sewing machine:



Sewing beads on jewelry roll by hand:
Sewing by hand and by daylight:
Silk dyer, Takeo Province:

Krakow, Phnom Penh, and Remembrance: A difficult post

I returned on Sunday from a two week, unexpected, free, and non-Three Stone Steps related trip to Poland. I've never had much desire to go to that Central/Eastern Europe nation, but my partner's provenance is, as he likes to say, 100 percent pure Polish, and, well, free airline tickets are hard to resist.

Poland, especially the area around Krakow--a lovely, if overly touristy city--was, during World War II, the epicenter of the Nazi atrocities. And, certain Krakovians are oh so cleverly taking advantage of this fact, opening "Jewish style" restaurants, offering tours to Schindler's factory, the Jewish ghetto, and, above all, to Auschwitz. It was all very disturbing, this overt marketing of a lost Jewish community in a Disneyland kind of way, and this marketing of a genocide. But, maybe some people need to be reminded, or worse yet, even learn what happened. Ok, and also disturbing is that no one running the tours, or really awful restaurants were actually Jewish. There was this mythologized version of it all; as if there was some really colorful people and past that is now gone. It's all well, it's too bad, but we'll play loads of uplifting Klezmer music anyway!





So, what does this have to do with Three Stone Steps' silk scarves, bags, and other fine fashion accessories? Well, they are from Cambodia, a nation with a much more recent genocide. I've been to Cambodia, specifically Phnom Penh, often. My first time there, I visited the Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide, a chilling experience since it's left pretty much it was when abandoned by the Khmer Rouge in 1979. It's very respectful, and the staff actually consists of actual Cambodians. I've met Cambodians over 35. Lovely people, as soon as they have some time alone with you, they talk and talk about life under the Khmer Rouge, still trying to make sense of the horrors.

So, it was with some dismay that today I read a New York Times article titled, "Pain of Khmer Rouge Era Lost on Cambodian Youth." It's all really chilling. As horrific as it is to remember the atrocities, it's even more horrific to forget.

I'm sure marketing gurus would tell me not to publish this post. Who wants to hear about genocide when purchasing a messenger bag? But, Cambodians still live in Cambodia. I work with one producer who has told me about life under the Khmer Rouge. All the people she hires are her age or older, and are mostly polio and landmine victims. Cambodia may the land of the amazing Angkor Wat, and incredibly beautiful silk products, but scratch the surface, and you'll find people still trying to make sense of the not too distant past.

Now that this post is finished, I promise that my next one will be more uplifting.

More on Weaving

Ok, way back in January, I promised to post on embroidery in Vietnam, but I decided it was way more fun to contine on the theme of weaving. I hope you don't mind.

Three Stone Steps get the majority of its silk--and all its cotton products--from Cambodia, and, most of this is from Takeo Province, which is about two hours by car from the capital of Phnom Penh. Some of the silk we carry from the province is found in the Angkor shoulder bag, and in the luxurious silk scarf in two tones. And, this Spring, Three Stone steps will have new products from Takeo silk: scarves, in a mixture of organza and raw silk, in fantastic colors, of course, and new colors and patterns for the Angkor shoulder bag, with matching wallets to boot. But, as usual, I get carried away and digress.

Anyway, the silk weaving process in Takeo is very different from that found in Vietnam--as seen in the post below--since in Cambodia, almost all weaving is done by hand, whereas in Vietnam, much is done by machine. As you might imagine, this is what makes silk woven in Cambodia some of the finest in the world, and makes it more expensive than the textile found in Vietnam.

But, on to the silk weaving photos:
This is what the silk looks like before anything is done to it. Sadly (and, vegans, avert your eyes now!) I haven't seen the entire process, starting with the silk worm eating the mulberry leaves thing, but I do know that neither Thailand or Cambodia have much of a sericulture culture. In fact, most of the silk woven in those countries comes from the sericulture village in Vietnam. (And, that's on the list for the next trip.)

So, this silk is lovely, but it can be lovelier by being dyed. In Cambodia, it's done by hand, and here's a bit of the process:

In caes you were wondering, it's being dyed a lovely deep aubergine.

More steps in the silk process include spinning the silk threads on to bobbins.



And, please not the bicycle tire rim used as part of the weaving process. A great example of reuse, the second law in the reduce/reuse/recycle mantra.

And, of course, the weaving:


Lone weaver.Working together to fix the warp.

And, some of the finished product:

Ready for market or for Three Stone Steps most discerning customers!

Election Eve and Early International Women's Day

Ahhh, exciting times we live in, especially this first week of March.

Tomorrow, in early celebration of International Women's Day, I will be leading a chat that most fabulous, wonderful, stupendous boutique, Hoopla Traders, in the Adams Morgan section of DC, at 2314 18th Street NW, as part of the neighborhood's First Tuesday celebration, and Hoopla's Living Green Salon. Not only do I run out of great adjectives when describing this place, but I also am tickled by the fact that the boutique is a fellow member of Co-op America.

In keeping with the international nature of the day, I will be having a discussion regarding how fair trade has helped women in Cambodia. If I can figure out my new laptop, I will also have photos of some of the women workers.

(Just a note: although the photo above is not of women making fair trade products for Three Stone Steps' customers, or even in Cambodia, it is my absolute favorite photo of women and one of my favorites from my many travels to Vietnam. Hope you enjoy it as I do.)

Please join me if you can. If you can't and find yourself in ournationscapital, and want to shop, you honestly can't do much better than stopping at Hoopla. It really is a warm, wonderful, and special boutique, and I'm not just saying that because they carry much of Three Stone Steps' product line!

While my little chat at Hoopla will pale in comparison to the excitement of refreshing the computer over and over and over again as the election results come in from the Texas, Ohio, Vermont, and Rhode Island primaries and primacaucus on Tuesday night, the effect that this race has on women and the discussion its garnered in the feminist community cannot go without mention, especially in the context of International Women's Day. Who really dreamed of a primary contest that didn't include two middle-aged white men?

Honestly, I really never thought of the Democratic contest in terms of a white woman versus a black man thing, but many do, and I know that this has garnered much debate in the feminist community. I know that my late mother, who held consciousness raising and assertiveness training sessions in our paneled suburban club basement in the 70s, would be beside herself just knowing that a woman was running and actually did/does have a shot at becoming president. I know that I, too, would like to see a female president in my lifetime, although I'm unsure if it should be this female. But, I so don't want to go there now.

Anyway, if the feminist aspects of this amazing primary contest interests you, I would strongly suggest reading a blog post by the Zaftig Redhead (really, how can anyone think a blog by that name could be anything other than interesting?) called Divisive Primary Hold Potential Fallout for Women's Rights Community. And, despite my comment about just knowing that my mother would be out in force for Hillary, Zaftig Redhead's analysis doesn't just talk about the split in terms of generational differences, or first versus fifteenth wave feminism.

So, there you have it. Loads going on these days, and a few long nights waiting for results and next steps lie ahead.