Musings on Makeovers
Halloween, one of America’s favorite celebrations, is on the far side of the calendar, we’re approaching the vernal equinox when the sun sits on the equator, day and night are of equal length and spring, as they say, has sprung. And spring, being a time of rebirth, emergence, transformation, accessible baseball, and an endless variety of other rites of passage, is also the time for Trashion Fashion, the annual aggregation of disposable junk rendered chic, wearable, and downright haute by a growing legion of Sonoma Valley designers who depend on glue guns as much as sewing machines and bring to Sonoma a fashion experience that almost surpasses Halloween.
The Sonoma Community Center, which makes all this happen, is gearing up for the April 6 show with a week of Trashion events, including “Barbie: Reclaimed & Reinvented,” an opportunity to seek revenge or bestow fresh dignity on Barbie dolls; the increasingly popular “Dogs on the Catwalk” Trashion show for canine couture; and a mix of other Trashion-related classes and activities.
Trashion Fashion is, clearly, an ultimate form of makeover. Seizing that theme (and riding it into the sunset), we decided to do one of our periodic Valley of the Moon magazine makeovers, this time with newly minted Sonoma Mayor Amy Harrington, who gamely agreed to not only a makeover, but also a serious, sit-down, mayoral interview.
We then decided to take the makeover theme one giant step further by inviting a cross-section of Sonoma Valley citizens to imagine how they would make over the town and the Valley we all live in—presumably to enhance the community’s quality of life. We reached out to some 80 people, suggesting a variety of issues to consider, and 14 ultimately responded with thoughtful, sometimes impassioned opinions.
Clear to all was the urgent need for some solution to the virtual absence of housing that is affordable for low-income residents and, increasingly, for middle-class folks as well. That consensus mirrors the conclusions reached by Sustainable Sonoma, a Valley-wide initiative launched by the Sonoma Ecology Center and some 30 other stakeholders who conducted 20 “listening” sessions and recorded 1,600 comments and opinions from participants.
Perhaps the makeover theme resonates because it reflects the need to have a plan and a mode of execution to change our personal and public appearances and realities. Would that it were as simple as gathering trash and turning it into the future we hold for Sonoma.
Wherever it leads, we hope you enjoy the makeovers and feel some incentive to imagine our future yourself.
Enjoy,
David Bolling, Editor & Publisher, Valley of the Moon Magazine
Trashion Fashion
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