Year: 2015

Our grandmothers had superpowers. They could measure without tape, cut without scissors and they could write without ink. With needle and thread, they wrote on fabric, using a visual alphabet, made out of symbols. Inspired by nature, they didn’t just described what they could see, but the laws of nature, which rule us all. Laws which, if respected, are meant to keep us in balance; connected with mother-earth, with our mothers and their mothers and with ourselves.

Keeping in mind what really matters, storing information to pass it along with experience to future generations (to make their life better) is our biggest responsibility. We think we solved it now, as we can store huge quantity of knowledge in artificial memory. But the challenge remains: what is really important, what really matters? Selecting what is relevant will make the difference, as well as what we chose to ignore.

Now, the superpower is to decide which side you want to be on. You chose to ignore or you chose to get involved and stand up for life and inform others.

The real superpower is to give a damn.

photo: © Raluca Savulescu & Mihaela Contiu

First time you are born as a consumer. Helpless, you need to be fed and cared for; you need affection, attention and energy, information and education. Your mother and then, if you are lucky, all society is there to protect you. You go to school, you graduate, you earn, you buy, you get a loan to buy more …

But then, at some point, it might happen to you again. You are born again. As a contributor, a creator, a protector. The circumstances change and you see the same world from a different angle: from above.

The new you will be independent, stronger, aware and will be there for others.

Values are changing and are better defined. Eventually you find a goal, a mission and a path to follow.

It’s a winding path but now you can see what it’s leading to. It’s a path of heroes. It’s the initiation journey and it’s no return.

photo: © Raluca Savulescu

All the clothes in the world, all labels and all fashions cannot cover a body without a soul.

What you wear is said to be a statement, a visual message for what people can expect of you. The fashion industry has made many of us to believe that social status, wealth and well-being is expressed in what we wear: from their offer, of course. It’s the power of “look how many things I can buy”.

And now, again, in the post-consumerism era, we understand that the power is “look how many things I can do”. And even more important: “look how many things I can buy but I don;t, because i don’t need to”.

Understanding and extracting the real needs is a process of getting to know yourself while learning your needs are everyone’s needs. The need to belong, to make yourself useful, to offer and protect – are more important than the ‘need’ to go shopping for all sort of excuses.

So yes, want them all: the journey, the earth, the stars, the rivers, the flowers, the birds and the bees and the human touch, the balance, the energy, the dream. But they can be all on one shirt. That is the Romanian concept, to have the whole world with you and to remember your role in it.