Tag Archives: Kate Fletcher

Sew 212 – Clothing is not fashion

I’ve learned so much from reading Kate Fletcher‘s Sustainable Fashion and Textiles: Design Journeys book – including an understanding about the difference between clothing and fashion.

Here’s a big slab of what Fletcher says about that: “Fashion and clothing are different concepts and entities. They contribute to human well-being both functionally and emotionally. Clothing is material production; fashion is symbolic production. Although their use and looks sometimes coincide, fashion and clothes connect with us in different ways. Fashion links us to time and space and deals with our emotional needs, manifesting us as social beings, as individuals. Fashion can be what is set in motion when a designer presents a new collection on a catwalk on Milan. But equally, fashion can be the moment when a teenager crops a pair of jeans, adds a badge to an old sweatshirt and paints their Converse pumps. Clothing, in contrast, is concerned chiefly with physical or functional needs, with sheltering, shielding and protecting. Not all clothes are fashion clothes and not all fashion finds expression in garment form. Yet where the fashion sector and the clothing industry come together (in fashion clothes) our emotional needs are made manifest as garments. This overlaying of emotional needs on physical goods fuels resource consumption, generates waste and promotes short-term thinking as we turn our gaze from one silhouette, hemline and colour palate to the next in search of the next new experience. It also leaves us dissatisfied and disempowered, as physical goods, no matter how many of them we consume, can never truly satisfy our psychological needs.” Continue reading →

Sew 40 – Changing clothes and habits

Skirt becomes one-shoulder dress by creating an armhole, lifting the hemline in a few minutes to create a second life.

I’m refashioning a garment a day as a creative way to distil wardrobes of clothing horded or rescued from op shops because I appreciate their intrinsic value as natural resources.

For me this is not just about remaking and selling clothes at places like Reverse Emporium, it is about leading – demonstrating by actions – how simple old-fashioned home-sewing skills can empower us to dress in a different way.

My Sew it Again project emerged from postgraduate study with the Australian Rural Leadership Foundation through James Cook University which was transformative – it led to eco-leadership in an authentic space of my own making.

I’m tapping into a global sustainable fashion movement in the United Kingdom and United States which is raising awareness about where clothes come from and what is their true cost. Continue reading →

Sew 18 – Silk skirt now dress

I love recreating cast-offs into something fresh, as I did by turning this beautiful but unworn long silk skirt from an op shop into a comfy and cool shift dress.

For everyone, clothing is essential. As well-known Australian designer and champion of natural fibres Liz Davenport said in Management Today September 2013, ‘you can get to an event without a car and without breakfast … but not without clothes’.

Clothing choices impact on our well-being, self-esteem and self-image, but there is a bigger picture to consider as we become mindful about where clothes come from and their true cost.

In Sustainable Fashion and Textiles, Kate Fletcher has written a definitive text on this subject in which she says the reuse of textile products ‘as is’ brings significant environmental savings. The energy used to collect, sort and resell second-hand garments is between 10 and 20 times less than that needed to make a new item. Continue reading →

Sew 15 – Silk au natural

Silk has a natural glow which draws my eye and this beautiful Anthea Crawford raw silk suit shines with integrity after a hand wash, no iron, and a few tweaks to update it.

As you many know, silk is produced from the chrysalis of silkworms. In her book Sustainable Fashion and Textiles: Design Journeys, Kate Fletcher says most commercially produced silk is cultivated and involves feeding the worms a controlled diet of mulberry leaves under special conditions.

The fibres are extracted by steaming to kill moth chrysalis (because if the moth is left to emerge the silk filament is damaged) and then washed in hot water to degum the silk. Sounds a bit grim – and all the more reason to treasure and reuse garments, and just wash and hang rather than dryclean and/or iron.

This book by Kate Fletcher was the first I read during postgraduate study last year which informed my journey to inspire upcycling natural fibre clothing for pleasure, reward and sustainability.

Its eight chapters provide innovative ways of thinking about fabrics and garments based on sustainability values and a broad, interconnected view of design that I will return to many times during this 365-day eco-clothing project.

Kate’s book includes actions and ideas, using practical skills and creative thinking to innovate, ways of working or visions compatible with sustainability – all drawn together into a holistic, multi-layered way that is roots-based, nature-inspired and an interconnected vision for the future.

Each of us can make a difference through small changes in the way we dress and the clothing we wear. Why buy new-new when you can make old-new?

I wondered whether I should remove the Anthea Crawford label from this suit and decided not to. The garment retains all the integrity of the original design, fabric and shell buttons – and I’ve just made a few small adaptations to give it a second life. I removed the shoulder pads, cropped the sleeves and the chunky waistband. I also trimmed the skirt length, and added this as a collar by sewing to the inside neckline, using a few tucks to make it fit, and then letting it drape over itself.