Tag Archives: Clothing

DESIGN, LIFE

3-Fifteen: Good Clothes, Good Coffee, Good Hearts

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By Rohan: 

3-Fifteen is a quirky little store on Marshall Street, adjacent to Syracuse University’s main campus. It is a thrift shop-coffeehouse combination proposed and run by students at the Martin J. Whitman School of Business and Management. While these passionate students own the place, they welcome others to join in on their cause to give back to those in need while providing quality goods for Syracuse locals.

When you step into 3-Fifteen, you immediately are reminded of a boutique in Northern California. Everything is handmade, stylistically unique, and the quality is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. Fashion and design students are actually making the clothes on the spot! They are putting the latest technologies to the test and trying to go green while still producing some awesome apparel. Everything from shirts and pants to the quirkiest of accessories can be found in this small, boutique-style thrift shop. Home goods are a new addition to the mix, with items influenced by different parts of the world.

Head downstairs and you’ve hit Cafe Kubal, a coffee shop that only uses the finest ingredients and imports its syrups. Sounds fancy, but the reality is thanks to university support and funding, the coffee costs no morethan your typical Starbucks. Three dollars can buy you a small latte, adorned with Kubal’s signature “latte art” and sweetened with fresh vanilla or soothing caramel. Your options are endless here, and if you want to see students in action making clothes for a good cause while getting in your afternoon coffee break, there is really no better place to be.

One of the neatest concepts of 3-Fifteen is that you get to choose where your money goes to. You make a difference every time you purchase something because the store allows you to decide the organization you want your purchase to go towards. It’s a really interesting concept and since university funding backs the project, it is sure to stick around for years to come.

Check out Syracuse University’s 3-Fifteen and Cafe Kubal, located on Marshall Street across from the Sheraton hotel:

http://www.3fifteen.org/

http://cafekubal.com/

LIFE, TRAVEL

Dhobi Ghat- A Cinematic Slice of Mumbai Life

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Mumbai’s Dhobi Ghat

By Siddhi: 

Reactions to my odd and obsessive desire to visit Mumbai’s open air laundromat Dhobi Ghat was summarized well by my taxi driver from Jharkand, who, unaware that I could fully understand Hindi, told my mom: “She must be a foreigner if she came all the way here to see the dhobis wash clothes.”

Admittedly, the only reason I knew about Dhobi Ghat was because of the titular 2010 film by Kiran Rao, wife of the major Bollywood contemporary filmmaker Aamir Khan.The movie popularized a place that would have otherwise remained a modest and publicly unnoteworthy element of day-to-day Mumbai life. Everyday, hundreds of washers known as Dhobis in Hindi gather at the concrete squares near the city’s Mahalaxmi Railway Station and perform the generational task of hand washing clothes underneath the open Mumbai skies. Rao’s movie exposed the raw humanity of an often-ignored slice of life in one of the world’s most significant cosmopolitan hubs. And I wanted nothing more in India than to see the place with my own two eyes.

After a few laughs and subtle yet unsuccessful efforts to dissuade me from “wasting” my time on something so commonplace and unremarkable with an afternoon’s itinerary of big name tourist attractions ahead, I found myself at what I consider one of the most cinematic and truthful places in all of the Mumbai I’ve seen.

The zigzags of clothes hanging indifferently on parallel lines patterned the invisible open air ceiling of Dhobi Ghat with visual intrigue. As an aspiring documentarian and travel photographer, the presence of lines and layers in new and engaging social climates fill me with adrenaline unlike any other. Colors, movement, and a spirit of basic livelihood characteristic of Mumbai and Mumbai only.

What enraptured me the most was the motion of the Dhobis. Although most of the workers had dwindled under the looming thunderclouds, a sign of withdrawal from the outdoors for anyone fearing the mighty Mumbai monsoons, the few that remained performed strange beauty with their synchronized and then unsynchronized motions. Up, down, shake. Up, down, shake. There was grace in the cautiously casual arcing of their hands bringing clothes into the moist air and then down hard onto the stone. Humility, pride, life.

I begged and threw a bit of a tantrum to sell my case on how passionately I wanted to climb down into heart of action. But because Dhobi Ghat is circled by slums, it’s both dangerous and disrespectful to photograph without permission or some sort of structured approach. Though disappointed, I know that next time in Mumbai, seeing more of a place pouring with honest life will be a top priority.

If you find yourself near the Malaxmi Station in Mumbai with a few minutes to spare, visit Dhobi Ghat. It’s really a memorable and culturally standout experience.