Weapon of Choice New Orleans : Slow Fashion and a Small Footprint

In June 2019, I was working as a costume designer with a circus artist/acrobat/educator named LadyBEAST. The project was a one woman show, highlighting the pollution caused by plastic waste in our oceans. She showed me photos of vast, enormous islands of garbage floating in the Pacific, big enough to be spotted by satellites. It really opened my eyes to how much plastic and non-recyclable products we use every day and casually throw away. If you start looking, you will see how ubiquitous and insidious it is: lunch to-go boxes, plastic forks, soy sauce packets, plastic bags, plastic envelopes, bubble mailers, styrofoam, chip bags, most packaging in general, clear plastic wrap, etc etc. The list goes on and on. When I lived in NYC, at night you’d have to walk around mountains of garbage in trash bags piled up to the height of small hills…all output from a single office buildings or skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan. There are thousands of them.

Weapon of Choice New Orleans has made some decisions. I know it doesn't sound very glamorous talking about packing tape and cardboard boxes, but I'm trying very hard to take responsibility for keeping Weapon of Choice New Orleans’ carbon footprint as small as possible. I am using as little plastic packaging as possible, instead opting for tissue paper and biodegradable packing peanuts (they melt in water!)

I embrace recycling and frequently repurpose old Amazon cardboard boxes and bubble wrap. I'm more concerned about landfills and toxic emissions from paper mills than I am about fancy packaging. Think of it as a sort of a “stealth delivery system”- you get a boring looking package filled with something amazing.

The planet needs help. This may be a teeny, tiny, mostly inconsequential step in the right direction, but I'm taking it. Who's with me?