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Lire & STYLE.

 

Swap it out!

Give those tattered togs

anew lease on life
Sophie
Isbister
- Life & Style
Heanckle Gisheotherpe oo

 

he first one I was invited to

was called a Naked Lady
Party. The Facebook invitation
was tantalizing: my friends,
some wine, and piles of clothes
to search through and claim for
my own? Yes please, sign me up!

Also known as a Bitch-
N-Switch, a clothing swap is
a great way to refresh your
wardrobe at a very minimal
cost. All it requires is a venue, a
bag of old clothes, and a sizeable
group of friends who also have
bags of old clothes.

Clothing swaps have been
ramping up in popularity
since the early ‘80s. They are a
fun, social way to clear some
room in your closet (and then
promptly fill it up again)—and
since you're meeting with like-
minded people to swap hand-
me-downs, the likelihood that
you'll walk away with great
items is much higher than if you
walked into a Value Village.

There are a couple
different types of clothing
swaps, and they have their
pros and cons. While swaps
began at a grassroots, do-it-

yourself level, the appeal of
the events have pushed them
into the mainstream. You can
“ow find public swaps that
] community centres and
ls: imagine table after table,
ganized by type of clothing,
id piled high with fabrics of
| different sizes, colours, and
textures.

These larger swaps are great
for a lot of reasons. Because
they’re so huge, there is more to
pick from. They usually operate
on the honour system: you
bring a bag of clean clothing
that you don’t want anymore, a
team of volunteers sorts it onto
the appropriate table (and if
you're a volunteer, you get first
dibs), and you take as much
as you want home with you.
Because these events are large
and organized, they will often
have a DJ or live band, and
stations with brief workshops
on upcycling (a fancy word
for modifying clothes to give
them an updated look). These
events usually charge a small
cover fee (think $2) to offset the
cost of the venue and volunteer
appreciation. After the event,
the leftover clothes are taken to
a charity.

The main downside to a
giant swap meet is its sheer size.
While it is good to have a lot
of stuff to choose from, much
of it will be useless to you, and
there is a fair amount of digging

around involved before you find
a real treasure. The free-for-all
aspect of the event can make a
giant swap feel like some kind
of low-rent sample sale, with
women and men darting around
in a chaotic frenzy to get that
one grey scarf before anyone
else does. Also, they don’t often
provide a good place to try the
clothes on, and it’s hard to walk
around carrying a giant glass of
wine (read: illegal). That’s why
I personally prefer a smaller,
more intimate swap.
Friend-based swaps work
best when you get enough
people on board, and they
work even better when you
have a variety of clothing
sizes, so there’s something for
everyone. Usually the person
who hosts the swap provides
some refreshments, but you can
also do it potluck style if you
want to get seriously granola
about it. The main drawback to
keeping it in the inner circle is
that someone with a vehicle has
to take the leftover clothes (and
there will be leftover clothes) to
the charity of your choosing.
As the season starts to
change and you realize you're
bored to death of your current
look, try a clothing swap!
They’re easy to organize,
fun to attend, and like most
good ideas, they benefit both
your pocketbook and the
environment.

 

Photo illustration by Joel McCarthy

 

Drink your dinner

Upstart wants you to
say goodbye to chewing
Aidan

| Mowellic
Stott Writer

  
 

 

e’re all so busy—or at

least, that’s what everyone
likes to tell each other. Some of
us are so busy (or lazy) that we
can’t even find the time to cook
ourselves a proper meal.

A new company thinks it
has the solution to this dilemma.
American entrepreneur Rob
Rhinehart and his crew of food
nerds have developed Soylent,

a liquid food that is meant to
replace all your meals. The
basis of Soylent is a powdered
concoction of protein, fibre,
vitamins, carbohydrates, and
essential lipids. Everything your
body needs is available within
the Soylent mixture, which sets
it apart from traditional meal-

replacement beverages that

you would typically only use to

replace one of your daily meals.

All the user needs to do is mix
yylent with water and then
msume it.

While the appeal of drinking
ery meal is lost on some, many
‘em up for it. A recent crowd-

funding initiative launched by
the Soylent team gathered over

food. We get these nutrients by
breaking food down to a paste,
allowing these miniature pieces
of fuel to be used by our bodies.
Soylent just skips the chewing
and breakdown phase and goes
straight to the miniature-fuel-
absorbing stage; a liquid-only
diet is actually rather logical.
When you walk into any
convenience store, it’s hard

eat—with Soylent, you can text
while you sip your meal.

For many though, sipping
is not satisfying. Looking down
into a cup of Soylent isn’t exactly
appetizing—if a sizzling steak
has sex appeal, Soylent looks
more like the remnants of sex
. The liquid meal is clumpy
and yellowish, but at least it
tastes and smells like vanilla.

ifa sizzling steak has sex appeal, Soylent looks more like the remnants of sex.

$1-million in support, which is
allowing Soylent to go into mass
production.

It may seem a bit ludicrous
to drink all your meals, but
Soylent has been Generally
Recognized as Safe (GRAS) by
the FDA, and the concept is not
as crazy as it seems. Our bodies
survive off of the nutrients in our

not to notice the wall of energy
drinks. Modern society is hell-
bent on finding weird solutions
to existing problems: if you’re
tired, you need only drink a
can of liquefied speed to feel
recharged. Soylent is perhaps a
pioneer then in a new market
of individuals who cannot put
technology on pause while they

Thankfully our eyes are only a
small part of the eating process.
Another problem that
Soylent tackles is the amount
of waste associated with the
eating process. The Institution
of Mechanical Engineers reports
that 30-50 per cent of the food
that humans produce is wasted.
Efficiency is perhaps the main

aim of Soylent: you make your
meal in minutes, drink it, and
then get back to work. No food
wasted and no time wasted. On
paper, Soylent appears to be the
ideal solution for the world’s
food crisis. Whether you're tired
of ramen or you’re starving ina
developing country, it could be a
lifesaver.

But food is more than
sustenance; eating is a social
activity that binds us together.
What sort of world would we
live in if, instead of sitting with
our friends and sharing a warm,
hearty meal, we downed jugs
of Soylent? It would likely be a
boring time.

Rhinehart may have created
something that is neat and
functional, but for liquid food
to stick around, it needs to find
a way to become as socially
binding as a solid meal and as
rewarding as a sticky cinnamon
bun. Until that happens,
humanity will chew on.