The Discerning Brute: fashion, food & etiquette for the ethically handsome man » activism

Monk Shoes, Champs Consolidates & Doughnut Wisdom

joshuakatcher — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 18:28:13 +0000

• Monk shoes have been popping up (and buckling down) all over the place, and Bourgeois Boheme has them with brogue details in black and brown. Snazzy. Yes, snazzy. • Earlier this month, the Vegetarian Food Festival took NYC by storm. In addition to scarfing down a Faux Gras sandwich and emceeing a doughnut-eating-contest, I took some photos of gentlemen with personal style who were on line (for 3 hours) or wandering around the area. Also threw in a picture of Chef Ayinde Howell cheering after serving up his famous mac-n-yease, and some fun costumes from Foodswings. • Although it's a bummer whenever a veg establishment closes it doors (as what happened to Williamsburg's Boneshakers), it's cool that they were able to consolidate with their other location, Champs, and now in addition to being a bakery, Champs offers an edited version of the Boneshakers menu including a yummy weekend brunch. I swung by on saturday and scarfed down a Tofu-Benedict on sourdough with vegan hollandaise sauce and a side of greens and mac-n-jeeze. I love my neighborhood! • Dunwell Doughnuts, the Brooklyn start-up featured a really interesting article on food activism today: We believe that a vegan doughnut could be a tremendous ambassador for vegan food. Also because we stepped into this believing that we wouldn't simply be making a good doughnut "considering it's vegan," but an AMAZING doughnut, heck, perhaps even the best doughnut you could find, vegan or non-vegan alike. Opening a shop would allow us to share this treat with people AND create a place for that much needed community.

Christopher Hollowell’s 5 Hour Activism

joshuakatcher — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 23:40:13 +0000

Not only is contributor, Christopher Hollowell, the confounding purveyor of NYC's first vegan doughnut enterprise, Dunwell Doughnuts, but he is also a stylish Discerning Brute and activist for animals. Christopher writes about his recent and effective experience with getting a business to stop using animal fur. Last month, when I was able to get Urban Outfitters to publicly apologize for selling real fur labeled as faux, it was emboldening and easier than I thought. Cases like this go to show that concerned emails, phone calls, and rational requests often work. Here's Christopher's experience in five easy steps. Do you have a similar story? Share it in the comments below. By Christopher Hollowell It is often difficult as an “activist,” and I use that word in the broadest way possible, to feel like any form of action we do truly makes a difference. We recycle to stop global warming and yet everyday see thousands of plastic water bottles being used and thrown into the trash, we cut the rings on the plastic device used to hold soda cans together in hopes that it won’t end up strangling a bird rummaging around in a landfill, we hand out pamphlets that end up in the trashcan down the block, we give up meat and advocate for a healthier and more sustainable lifestyle all the while watching fast food chains grow and advertise all around us, and we ride our bikes only to get an ear full of horns and a face full of exhaust. The entire notion of being an activist can, in many ways, feel like a futile effort. An effort that, at times, seems to be based more in faith than logic as societal pressures for the immediate creep into our psyche. “When will I see the change?” we ask ourselves. Well, this past week I saw change. And change happened fast. On March 24th at 5:33 I received a message from my friend directing me to an article that would at first disgust me and eventually be a source of extreme joy and a symbol of the power our voices can have. The Article, titled “Fur-Out: Rubil & Raven Does Fur Hair Extensions” for sfindiefashion.com was intended to highlight the “cool” new fashion trend that was beginning at a salon in the heart of San Francisco. A stylist there, Sonja E., had decided to reinvent the trendy feather extension look that has recently become ‘all the rage’ in SF by exchanging the feathers with fur. In the article she was quoted to have found inspiration for the idea while looking around a local bait shop where a plethora of fishing ties that utilized fur were on display. This article praised the practice as the beginning of the “next big trend” in the city. I was furious. Those who know me know that of all the things that make me mad, fur tops the list. The illogic of wearing or using it is so forging to my mind that I become visibly altered when I am in its presence. This article was no different. I immediately set to work.

Fur hair-extensions in a variety of dyed, dead chinchilla pelts.

Step One: Respond to the article, which had had pictures of the author getting her hair done in these unnecessary and cruel accessories, with a calm and thoughtful analysis that highlighted my disagreement with the practice and hopes for its end. Step two: Contact the salon offering the treatment by phone and speak with the owner. This was an interesting point because the owner was a very nice man who was a great conversationalist but was, at the time, unwilling take on responsibility for the actions of a stylist working within his salon because of her status as an independent contractor. I proceeded to make him aware that I found it to be an unwise business practice to allow one’s name to be used in the promotion of any product or service that he himself did not oversee or approve. Because of this I would be organizing a boycott of the entire salon including any other stylist who was working under the same roof as the aforementioned Sonja E. whom he asserted was the only person offering the extensions. Step Three: Put boycott into action. Using social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter I posted the salon’s phone number and Yelp page whilst encouraging everyone I knew to contact and boycott this salon and those who work within its walls until the situation was rectified. Step Four: Lower the yelp rating of the salon. At the time I read the article Rubio & Raven had a five star rating on Yelp, by the time I had finished it was close to a three. Step Five: Educate the salon as to what the fur they are using represents and what it actually means to promote something so frivolous and disgusting. (Thank you Tim Gunn and PETA for making such a great film that explores this issue) In less than five hours, around 10:20PM, I received a personal letter from Sonja, the stylist using the extensions, apologizing for her actions and promising to immediately cease all use of fur within the salon. She further went on to praise my commitment and passion for the cause and explain that she had had no idea that what she was using was not faux, she had assumed that all fur on that scale was faux and that it was never her intention to contribute to any form of animal cruelty. The battle had been won, the fur was gone, and this all happened in less than 5 hours. How is that for activism paying off?

illustration of Christopher by Richard Haines

I immediately called off the boycott of the salon and lauded them for their haste in rectifying the situation. I further went on to explain to her and the salon that ignorance is only an excuse once and that I was happy that they chose to heed the call and rise above fashion at any cost. That next morning I noticed that the article that had so openly praised the use of the fur extensions had been changed and now claimed:

* Editor’s Note: The SF Indie Fashion editorial team has removed identifying information for the salon and its stylist due to threats made against the business. The salon has since stopped offering the service.

A Wild Goose Chase for Airline Safety

joshuakatcher — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 16:47:57 +0000

Canada Goose: plate from BIRDS OF AMERICA

It's a bird! It's a plane! For the past two years, New York City has gone on a wild goose chase in an attempt to mitigate concerns about airline safety. The logic is something like this: If we kill most of the birds in the air around airports, they won't accidentally fly into engines and cause plane crashes. Yes, let's model our technology after the elegant design of mother nature's birds - and then kill our idols so they don't get in the way of imitating them. Following this line of logic, maybe we should also melt all the ice-burgs so boats will not hit them and sink. Oh wait...aren't we doing that? I think I just came up with a new spin on global warming for the CCF's PR masterminds. Global Warming prevents Titanic tragedies! New York City has contracted with the Wildlife Services division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to kill Canada geese. So far more than 2,800 Canada geese have been cruelly rounded up during molting season, when the geese shed their flight feathers and cannot fly away. After being rounded up in pens, the geese are transported to mobile gas chambers where they are asphyxiated with carbon dioxide gas. It is a slow, painful and utterly unjustified death for these beautiful birds. The city claims the geese are killed to make air travel safer, but killing geese does nothing to enhance airline safety. Click HERE to join IDA's Virtual Demo and take action for NYC's geese right now.

The Hunt & Spring Accessories

joshuakatcher — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 04:23:02 +0000

“La chasse au lièvre" by Armand Charnay, French, 1868.

I came across this painting while doing some research and found it to be particularly haunting. This French impressionist managed to capture the anonymity, the pensive mood, and the ambiguous darkness in moment when a group of men are about to bludgeon a rabbit. It's clear that the artist has an opinion about this act - but also the complexity of such actions. For example, what are the circumstances? Is this about survival? Is for amusement? Does the rabbit get away? Unlike other paintings where the hunt is glorified, or baroque still-life images showcasing dead animals draped like decorations among flowers and fruits - this painting does not glorify the men or beautify the hunt.

Photo courtesy of the Humane Society of the United States

In a startlingly similar image of the seal hunt, which is about to commence once again, a man stands over a baby seal about to bludgeon it with a club. But, unlike the painting above, we know the circumstances of this action. The seal does not get away. The body is left to rot, a bloody mess, on the ice. It is unnecessary and done for fashion garments that are banned in many parts of the world, yet the Canadian government allows this cruel and unnecessary mass killing - the largest slaughter of marine mammals on the planet - to continue year after year. Click here to send a letter to Canada's politicians. • Italian-made, light brown vegan boat shoes and woven-belts for spring! Get on it.

Anntian Spring’11, Eat the Living & Animal Rescue Corps

joshuakatcher — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 04:07:15 +0000

• ANNTIAN's Spring 2011 lookbook, inspired by the natural, ripe lushness of fruit, features bright colors, organic, lux textures and patters, and hints of psychedelic tribalism - an ode to the future hippie in a sane world. Anttian says "Behind this is our wish to touch on the subject of how important the relationship and behavior towards nature and food and "living together" is. Anntiain strives to use sustainable materials like organic cotton. • "Should we name them?" This was one of the first things one of the "foodies" asked before eating live lobster at 15 East for the sake of Zagat. Immediately the woman in the middle says, "No That will give them personality" and the man on the far right, "then there'll be a whole faction of PETA people that think we're terrible". Eating an animal while it's still squirming requires a serious disconnect, but even more-so, it requires a desire to be seen as controversial, edgy, experimental, brave and cool . The website challenges, "If you’re brave enough to experience it yourself, the special is $120 and feeds two." Listening to the people in the video fumble through rationalizations for doing this is amazing. See for yourself: This reminds me of the recent article, The Moral Crusade Against Foodies, by B. R. Myers, which is a must-read for anyone concerned with food and ethics issues. Image credit: John Cuneo

“A true gastronome,” according to a British dining manual of the time, “is as insensible to suffering as is a conqueror.” But for the past several decades, factory farms have made meat ever cheaper and—as the excellent book The CAFO Reader makes clear—the pain and trauma are thrown in for free. The contemporary gourmet reacts by voicing an ever-stronger preference for free-range meats from small local farms. He even claims to believe that well-treated animals taste better, though his heart isn’t really in it.

• I love the aesthetic of the Animal Rescue Corps. It's very effective, using a military-inspired logo and language like "serving" animals. The real heroism of this organization is showcased in their organized, rescue operations - and President Scotlund Haisley is certainly a Discerning Brute, with impressive and extensive experience in animal rescue, shelters, advocacy, fund-raising and legislation - even rehabilitating 11 of Michael Vick's dogs, and working to rescue of over 1,000 animals in post-Katrina New Orleans. With a focus on Puppy Mills, Companion Animal Abuse, Animals in Agriculture, and Animals in Research, the Animal Rescue Corps is a reserve of true heroes. Why not join them?

Lincoln Center Sustainable Fashion & PINNACLE

joshuakatcher — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 02:32:46 +0000

A photog from the RightyRightyRight fashion blog and zine snapped some photos of my rad outfit sponsored by CPas & NOVACAS at Lincoln Center, yesterday. In addition to the recycled-poly, hand-tailored blazer and vest, the organic cotton shirt and pants, the recycled-poly and recycled-cotton coat, the organic denim and vegan leather bag, and the NOVACAS vegan boots - I was wearing my April77 vegan biker jacket, carrying a Matt & Nat cruelty-free bag with recycled soda-bottle ultra-suede lining, and sporting my fav vintage sunglasses. This happened right before I went into Lincoln Center and got interviewed by Robert Verdi. I showed him the PINNACLE Mag, to which he said “I already have that“. I was wowed. Mr. Verdi, are you anti-fur yet? Huffington Post contributor, Andy Stepanian, wrote a really impressive article on PINNACLE: Reinvent The Icon today, featuring some of the amazing photos by Anthony Two Moons and Gregory Vaughan. PLease check it out and spread the word!

John Bartlett Plans Vegan Fashion Future

joshuakatcher — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 16:55:12 +0000

• NBC's Nell Alk was in attendance to cover the Fashion & Animals event last night, ushering in a fashion week that is sure to be drenched in skins, pelts, hairs and other symbols of so-called "luxury". John Bartlett, the award-winning designer and CFDA Board of Directors member, appeared as a special guest, taking questions and making some inspiring comments and announcements:

“Next time I show,” Bartlett told Niteside, “I want to show a fully vegan collection. I want to make sure there’s intention behind it. Over the past year, I have taken leather out of my collections, I will no longer down and, hopefully by next fall, I will no longer wool."

The John Bartlett Spring 2011 collection that will be hitting the racks soon already features some gorgeous, supple vegan ultra-suede jackets made in NYC, as well as some linen-based denims and organic cottons.

Thieves & Washington State

joshuakatcher — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 17:28:40 +0000

• The Skuld Crossover Pants in hemp/tencel blend with loose-pleated top and narrow ankles, and the MN Slim Jeans in black organic cotton from Thieves are two very cool pieces. Subtle pleats with a tailored cut below-the-knee is a great shape for spring, and simple, fitted, black jeans never get old. • Following in the footsteps of Florida, Arizona and California, Farm Sanctuary has joined with HSUS and citizens in Washington state to launch an initiative effort to prevent cruelty. Language has been submitted and signatures will be collected to qualify a measure for the ballot that will outlaw battery cages and lessen the suffering of more than 6 million hens who are currently packed in these inhumane enclosures on egg farms in Washington state. These hens spend their entire lives crammed into tiny cages where they cannot spread their wings, and whose beaks are often seared off so they do not resort to cannibalism from stress. As this initiative takes off, find out how you can get involved.