The dresstag story
(a blog post that has been a long time coming)
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| a dresstag recently given to a friend on her way to NJ. She put on the intention and left it somewhere in NJ :) |
Many people have asked me about the whys and hows behind my dresstags, so I felt the best approach to the dresstag's story would be in an answer and question format.
There is a lot to the story of the dresstag, so I have broken it down into a few installments – with LOTS of visuals!!!!
let's begin . . .
A dresstag is a small origami dress, onto which I write a fortune, sentiment, intention or wish. I then place them in random public places ~ such as on a bus seat, in a payphone or at a Starbucks.
Then I walk away.
My hope is that someone will see this little dress and pick it up, read it and either replace it for someone else to find or take it home. Dresstagging is a way for me to spread some good vibes and positive energy in this sometimes cynical world.
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| the back of one of the first dresstags |
2. do you know what happens to your dresstags??
No, I don’t know what happens to the dresstag after I leave it. Every so often I see that the dress is gone from the place I put it, but I have never seen a dresstag picked up. In fact there is a bit of a sociological study in this dresstag practice – what causes people to pick something up or to just leave it???
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| may this dress bring u on a magical, mysterious journey (the dresstag from the book reading) |
Example: I was at a book reading at a local library and I left a dresstag on the chairs of two girls who had gone up to get their book signed. I did a quick pass by their chairs once the girls returned to their get their coats and then left and the dress was still there?!?!?
There is a lot of fear around unknown objects, ‘you don’t know where that has been’?!?!? 'Report any thing suspicious to the police' There is the fear of germs or of getting involved, even though my dresstags are small, colorful and basically benign.
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| encouraging people to take the dresstag |
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| dresstag at the Fort Point Arts Community Gallery |
3. would you like to know where the dresstags go??
YES!! but I don’t know how ~ I experimented with putting on my name or my website/email on the dresstags, but adding my information never fit the spirit of the project. I would LOVE to know if someone finds the dress, however adding my email seemed to add a commercial element to my dresstags, which belied my original intention.
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| experimenting with tagging the dresstag . . . |
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| i love instragram! |
However, thanks to cell phones with cameras, many times I am able to photograph the dresstag in its public locale and post it on FB, Twitter and especially Instragram, along with the dress’s fortune. These postings have surprisingly become a significant element to my dresstag practice.
Although I have no idea the fate of the physical dress, via these social media sites I learn that many of my dresstags have reached people. I get ‘likes’ and even comments on different dress, some people saying that the photo brightened their day, which is my intent – be it in person or online.
I have dropped MANY dresstags in the past year and a half, and some of the photos of these dresstags I have collected in an album on FB. Here is a link to this album that can be used by anyone!! no need to belong to Facebook and I quote'
"You can use this link to share this photo album with anyone, even if they don't have a Facebook account. Anyone with the link will be able to see your photo album." Facebook
(if you are not on FB and try this link , please let me know if it works - I am so hot-wired into FB I am not sure I can really test the link:)
In this album you can see the many versions of my dresstags as well as the variety of places that they end up.
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| may this dress bring you peace . . |
So this was a beginning of the story, more to come . . .
