Not to start off on a negative note, but I think my judging books by covers started at a young age. When my peers discovered Guess and Pepe jeans, Hypercolor and Nautica (giving away the era and my age...), I found my hard-earned baby-sitting money went further on already broken-in garage sale Levi's. My love for shoes and limited budget lead me to the clearance section at Crown Shoes and Leeds for some interesting kicks marked down. My method of stretching my dollar has ocassionally back-fired and sometimes I would learn later why these things were on the clearance rack, the ill-fitting style or faulty finish that would rub off on everything... I was raised in a creative family and learned to sew young, and appreciate art, patterns, textures. When it was time for a trip to Wal-Mart, I'd end up in the fabrics, getting a yard of some cool fabric to go home and make a new shirt. Then the thrill of having something like no one else lead me to be pretty big-time interested in fashion design, and I sewed prom dresses, everyday pieces, home decor pieces.
Back to my original thought, the labels on clothes back in the day revealed nothing about the person in those clothes. Many in that time of my life would wear a certain label hoping to project something they weren't. As I've worked with a variety of tools, countless artistic mediums and tried lots of different hair and body products, sometimes recommended because of the name brand, I've learned that sometimes a name is just a name, and sometimes a name stands for something. My experience running things at Keeping Good Company for a few years exposed me to some name brands that stood for something - the Justice furniture for example stood for hand-made, Missouri-made, real people running that company, and although it was a little pricey I felt great about representing that company and sharing their creations (Mary Moss Furniture by Bright City Lights is carrying Justice now). And the Archipelago candles didn't quite have the personal touch from the company headquarters like Justice, and their shipping and billing was a little bit of a hassle, but the quality of that candle was unlike any other - those are at Kent's Floral Gallery now...
My attention to food labels is where this has taken me more recently. I have learned a lot in a relatively short amount of time, but years of bits and pieces finally coming together and I'm taking charge, making choices, feeling GREAT. Join me, share your tips, let's make lots of little changes that add up to big differences in our health, in our kids, in our whole wide world.
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