To infinity and not to banishment
Fashion Goes Beyond...
To be free is a difficult decision.
We all know what it’s like to be free of clothing!
Some of us choose to be free of fashion….
Others have no choice, but to wear a uniform.
This September thousands of prisoners are to be relieved of their uniform (jeans and sweats) and embark upon early freedom due to overcrowding in UK gaols. They will ‘escape’ this type of rehabilitation centre, built first to punish and then to push the boundary of known criminal behaviour to a behaviour that is acceptable for living in a civilised society. This release of prisoners has raised concern, is this action posing a potential hazard to a wider society and also to these prisoners themselves?
Elsewhere this month, a handful of mavericks embarked on Polaris Dawn Space Mission. They have donned a re-engineered test spacesuit and ‘escaped’ to an area beyond Earth that poses a potential hazard specifically to spacecraft and their crews. This risky spacewalk is criticised for wasting billions of dollars, despite its attempt to expand human knowledge.
Escaping can be an uneasy experience.
Shakespeare wrote about. He set up his escapes in the context of the Forest of Arden, where all manner of players had the chance to transition ‘to liberty and not to banishment’.
A regular ‘escapation’ - is ‘a thing’ that we contemplate every day at Mozzie Cozzie.
We set ourselves an ongoing challenge to work in nature whenever we can. We have come to better understand the hazards of ‘life out there’ and also fallen in love with the benefits of an outside work setting that signifies a sense of freedom.
We operate discovery boundaries, we make moments to sit and contemplate during our working schedule. And because we are often, working outside in our own, handmade clothing, there feels time to consider how we make it in the UK.
It takes action and practice to really break free from something. Over time we can learn to avoid old destructive habits with intent and discover something better for ourselves.
We fail a lot when we try to be truly set free.
What can we learn? How can we cope? Do we dare to see what happens when something that is as familiar as our usual clothes, the inside of a harsh, noisy cell, or the simple comfort of being on terra firma is projected far away from us?
Can what happens next be an opportunity for good?
Mozzie Cozzie makes escape suits through employing prison graduates in the making of our clothes. We pay living wages to make this possible and teach how to sew a top and a bottom in our novel one-piece clothing. We are proud of our British quality, longevity and durability. And we educate carefully and considerately to try to ensure this knowledge lasts to infinity and beyond.
Like the SpaceX explorers, we too feel a sense of weightlessness when we walk out in our suits. This is because of their BZziness credentials, that rightly cost more than a cheap, tight, sweaty business suit. The only thing we share with a 3-piece suit, is the same number of pattern pieces.
We believe that labour that actually does good is common sense. We value and price it correctly to reflect the maker’s work. Reassuringly, our fibre credentials don’t cost us the Earth either.
Our comfortable suits help our local society - one third of the amount our customers invest to buy one goes to make a real job for those rehabilitating and re-integrating in society.
Keeping our feet on the ground - gives us time to contribute back to our surroundings.
Our suits deal directly with everyday hazards, protecting from insects that bite.
We make them to employ people taking action to rehabilitate themselves giving them a chance to secure work long term in UK manufacturing.
As digital nomads, we share the feeling of wanting to integrate. People ask us who we are, what we do, where we are going?
Sometimes we don’t know whether to call the last place a home or if the next place can be.
What we do know is that we value exploration, we value acceptance and we like to avoid hazards at the same time!
We think we have things in common with our chosen makers.
It’s good to ask, to suspend judgement, to reach out to those who might need some encouragement and support and see what happens next…
It is easy to get lost in space whether we are treading an unfamiliar, lonely pavement or riding around in a special space suit - we all are itching for a sense of freedom and acceptance.
Whatever happens - we ask, can it be done together, with compassion and for the good of the whole?
May we find infinite strength to do good in a way that we could if we were totally free.
And if we are not, may we find ways to treat others as we would ourselves like to be treated.
Stay suitable, search out answers with questions and find your freedom, because it is life that is out there for capturing!
Nothing else.
Contemplate freedom in Mozzie Cozzie - made for free-range people, made by free people...