Take It Up Wear It Out in 2020

You might have noticed that things have been a bit quiet here recently. After two years of blogging fairly consistently, Take It Up Wear It Out unfortunately had to take a bit of a backseat in 2019. I moved house at the end of 2018, so unpacking, making new soft furnishings and decorating took up a lot of time and energy. I also wanted to work on other sewing projects, like improving my embroidery skills, and creating my first work of wearable textile art, Worn Out.

 Political events meant that my mental health took a bit of a battering - the reluctance of the government to act on the advice they were given by the Environmental Audit Committee to reduce the worst impacts of the fast fashion industry frustrated me, and the increasingly aggressive policing of peaceful Extinction Rebellion protests made me very anxious. Brexit loomed; a constant threat to jobs, trade, the supply of medicines, human rights and even our toilet paper supply as we discovered how woefully unprepared the government was and how little they seemed to care. And then the selfish, lying opportunists won an election and think they can do whatever they want.

Although I’ve spent a few days feeling hopeless, I’ve also realised I’ve learned a lot from a year of reading, speaking with and listening to other activists, taking part in anti-fast-fashion actions with Extinction Rebellion, running sewing workshops and generally observing what works and what doesn’t when it comes to helping people to make more environmentally friendly choices. I’ve got exciting plans for 2020, so here’s a little sneak peek at what you can expect from Take It Up Wear It Out in the first few months next year.

The Twelve Days of Fix-mas 
I’ve realised I have a backlog of alterations, upcycles and other sewing projects that I’ve finished but haven’t mentioned anywhere, so they’ll be going up on my Instagram and as a series of mini blog posts between Christmas and the 6th January.

Fix It February
January always begins with a relentless onslaught of pressure to improve every aspect of our lives. It’s impossible to make every resolution stick at once, so it’s all too easy to feel like a failure before the year has even properly begun. So I’m giving everyone a month before I start my Instagram challenge to encourage everyone to get stuck in to that pile of alterations and repairs that we’re all saving “for later”. It’s still cold and dark outside, so what better time of year to snuggle up with some sewing?

Workshops
I’ll be assisting my amazingly talented artist friend CL Gamble with their ongoing project, Blanket Fort. This collaborative art project will involve making “achievement” patches that serve as a reminder to act in solidarity against the pressures of capitalism, neoliberalism and individualism. More details about the workshop on 4th Jan are available here.

I’ll also be running a sewing workshop as part of Swish and Style in Enfield, in partnership with Wise Up To Waste. Learn some simple embroidery stitches, and make a patch to customise or repair a favourite item of clothing. More details about the event are available here.

Ongoing blog series: Fashion Isn’t Rubbish!
I’m planning a monthly blog post about fashion that is being made from recycled and reclaimed materials. I’d love to feature a really diverse array of garments and accessories, so if there’s a brand you think I ought to know about, or you’re a brand doing innovative things, give me a shout! I’m looking for anything involving deadstock fabrics, recycled fabrics or yarns, post-industry or post-consumer waste or scaleable upcycling.

Ongoing holiday plans - Britain’s textile history
I travelled up to Burnley in October for the British Textile Biennial and visited the Queen Street Mill, after finding out that my grandmother’s family had been employed in Burnley’s textile mills. Britain’s textile history is complex and fascinating, and I’m planning to visit as many museums, historic factories and mills as possible before they are lost to developers or lack of funding. As well as personal family threads, I’m curious to follow the thread that leads from the Industrial Revolution to our current global fashion system, and hopefully I’ll be blogging about my travels! Again, if you know any local hidden gems, do share them with me.

Thank you all for following Take It Up Wear It Out, chatting to me on social media and saying kind things about my writing! It’s important to me to act to improve the fashion industry by constantly learning and sharing existing skills and new information, so I hope you’ll keep reading.

Climate grief, clothing, and the lessons we need to learn from history

“Climate grief” and “eco-anxiety” might simply sound like buzzwords, borne out of a sudden awareness of the perilous state of the planet thanks to Extinction Rebellion or David Attenborough’s Blue Planet 2, but for me they evoke a strange sense of comfort. Like the diagnosis of a chronic condition, naming what ails you might not bring a cure, or even relief, but it does bring a certainty, a confirmation that you are not alone, and (hopefully) guidance on how to manage your condition. 

These aren’t twenty-first century problems either, the preserve of “snowflakes” who don’t have anything better to worry about. Philosopher Jeremy Bentham was concerned about animal welfare back in the 1780s, emphasising the need to recognise the fact that animals can suffer, and to treat them accordingly. JRR Tolkien experienced a profound sense of distress at the industrialisation of the countryside around his childhood home, and this feeling threads itself throughout the Lord of the Rings trilogy. And in the 19th Century, the excesses of the fashion industry led to the onset of eco anxiety and, eventually, attempts to atone for our actions. 

By the 1850s, the Industrial Revolution had increased the speed and volume of clothing production, and Britain’s colonialist invasion of other countries had opened up rich new sources of materials. Not content with exploiting our fellow humans, we also began to exploit the natural world on a much larger scale. Iridescent jewel beetles were shipped back from British owned slave plantations along with the cotton to make the dresses their brightly-coloured wings would adorn. Whole hummingbirds and birds of paradise were stuffed and posed on hats and fans. Sealskin was transformed from a useful fabric worn by the indigenous people who lived in close proximity to seals to a sought-after fashion accessory.

Our desire for exotic fashions had already had a noticeable effect on wildlife. Beaver fur had been popular for hat-making for several centuries, leaving the European beaver population decimated. Thanks to changes in fashions and construction methods, baleen or “whalebone” was being phased out as a boning for corsets, but coastal areas remained conspicuously whale-free.

In his book Wild Ones, Jon Mooallam talks about “shifting baseline syndrome”: the natural world we grow up with is the one we regard as normal, and we find it hard to imagine the abundance of wildlife that previous generations would have taken for granted. 

However it is possible to radically change perspectives within a lifetime. William Temple Horniday was a hunter and taxidermist who became a fierce advocate for animal conservation, once he realised that the best way to preserve animals for future generations was alive in their natural habitat rather than stuffed in a museum. 

Horniday wrote an impassioned letter to the New York Times in 1913, demanding an end to the use of feathers in fashion. “The whole matter is up to the women,” he wrote. “On their heads is the blood of the slaughtered innocents.” I think it’s important to acknowledge the sexism at work here - Horniday apportioned no blame to the hunters, feather merchants and dealers who profited from the industry and supplied the demand. This is still how criticism of the fashion industry plays out today; commentators criticise young women as vain and frivolous while ignoring the multinational companies raking in huge profits and exploiting a largely female workforce. Women in the 19th Century were instrumental in changing the public’s opinion on exotic furs and feathers; they were the founders of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in Britain, and the Audubon Society in the US. Their campaigns ultimately brought about laws banning or restricting the sale of certain pelts and plumes for the fashion industry.

Horniday felt frustrated by the limits of his activism: “I tried to inject the courage into the hearts of men, but today I think that speaking generally, civilised man is an unmitigated ass.” I can’t help but empathise with that statement. Mooallam puts Horniday’s frustration into context, offering hope to all environmental activists: “Like all of us, his imagination was hopelessly trapped in its own moment, its own lifetime. He could only see the world through the tiny keyhole of the present.”

Despite the excellent work done by animal rights charities for over a hundred years, our conservation efforts have not kept pace with our voracious appetite for more clothes, and our relentless desire for new things. We’re still killing animals for clothes, but we are also making synthetic fabrics from their eons-old compressed bodies. We are destroying natural habitats to farm fashion, and our careless production methods mean that we are polluting the planet for generations to come. 

The fashion industry is more vast, complex and environmentally devastating than anyone at a previous point in history could have imagined. Yet we all have the opportunity to be, as Mooallam puts it, a tiny counterweight to that shifting baseline. Fast fashion in its current juggernaut state didn’t exist 25 years ago. The industry doesn’t have to be like this.

In the spirit of acknowledging my climate grief, I went along to Extinction Rebellion’s grief procession on a rainy Saturday in October. I put together a Victorian-style mourning outfit, complete with exotic bird puppet/umbrella. I find the Victorian cult of mourning quite fascinating, especially as I don’t think we always do a great job of dealing with grief in the present day. Although I disagree with the idea of imposing a compulsory dress code on anyone, being able to signal emotion through the wearing of a certain colour of clothing felt oddly freeing. I didn’t have to explain my grief or my anxiety to anyone, and being surrounded by so many other people who felt the same way gave me a lot of strength and reassurance. I’m still working on not feeling overwhelmed by my emotions around climate breakdown, but looking back through history has helped me see the potential for hope.



The podcast 99% Invisible features an episode called “Wild Ones Live”, which features Jon Mooallam reading excerpts from his book with musical accompaniment. I find it tremendously reassuring to listen to, it’s one of the few things that can always soothe my eco-anxiety.

Exhibition photos taken at the V&A’s Fashioned From Nature

It's time to ask "Who Made My Merchandise?"

In the excellent costume collection at Worthing Museum in West Sussex there is a patchwork maxi skirt from the 1960s. Interspersed between delicate floral prints in apple green and buttercup yellow, there are a couple of plain rose pink panels, and on one of these the skirt’s owner has embroidered Leonard Cohen in a flowing script reminiscent of the “best handwriting” that used to be taught in schools. 

I wanted to ask the original owner so many questions - was the embroidery a spur-of-the-moment decision, or carefully planned? Was it done specifically for a certain festival or concert, or just as a general declaration of loyalty to, or love for, a favourite musician? I was intrigued by the juxtaposition of the sunny, cheerful nature of the ditsy floral prints, and the emotional intensity that I associate with Leonard Cohen songs. If I was to choose an article of clothing to represent the mood that Leonard Cohen songs evoke in me, it would not be this skirt. Was its owner finding different meanings and feelings in this shared experience of popular culture? Or was the juxtaposition deliberate, drawing attention to the fact that this brightly dressed young woman also felt intense emotions but didn’t want them to interfere with her aesthetic? 

At a time when we can buy merchandise to advertise our love of almost any musician, film, TV show or musical, customised clothing proclaiming our pop culture allegiances is becoming a cultural artefact, more likely to be found in a museum collection than at a concert or a convention. 

Mass-produced merchandise has invented its own ways of offering a personalised experience to the buyer. Band tour t-shirts are a covetable souvenir, a way to say “I was here, I experienced this particular moment with my idol”. Fan-designed t-shirts, often a mash-up of different beloved sci-fi stories, are a wearable in-joke, a way of finding your tribe, the people who unapologetically love what you love. 

But, like everything fun in life, your fave is (probably) problematic. We are getting used to asking fashion brands “Who made my clothes?” but are we asking the same questions of wearable merchandise? We are often drawn to stories because they have a message that resonates with us; they show us a way of being in the world that feels important to explore. At a time of international political turmoil, they help to realign our moral compasses, teaching us courage, compassion and strength. 

And yet, a cultural phenomenon that urges us to “do what is right, not what is easy” partners with a fast fashion brand to sell as much cheap, sweatshop-made merchandise as possible. I understand the argument that merchandise for books and films that are so meaningful for so many people should be widely available and affordable. But when an Isle-of-Wight based start-up, Teemill, is able to make affordable print-on-demand merch using natural inks and ethically sourced t-shirts with a 24hr turnaround, while running a training programme for local young people, shouldn’t some of the richest people in the world and Hollywood mega-corporations be able to do the same thing? 

I’m always excited when I’m able to buy a piece of ethical merchandise. The ongoing collaboration between the Star Wars franchise and sustainable shoe brand Po-Zu has resulted in me owning three pairs of incredibly comfortable shoes while also letting me wear a subtle logo of something I’ve loved since I was a teenager. I was also able to use “but it’s made from recycled materials!” as an excuse to buy a Hamilton tote, despite the fact that I already own approximately 50 tote bags. 

When The 1975 announced that they were going to start a recycling scheme for the t-shirts they have sold to fans, re-printing deadstock t-shirts rather than making new for each tour, a predictable criticism was thrown at them - wasn’t it hypocritical to be tackling t-shirts when they were flying to international tour dates? By that criticism, all music, TV, film and theatre is hugely environmentally damaging and we shouldn’t consume any culture at all. I have looked at the way that costume departments in film and TV are grappling with their environmental impact in a previous post, and for full disclosure I’ll point out that my day job is within this industry and I don’t want to be made jobless!  I think all forms of the arts are crucial to a healthy, functioning democracy as they give us ways to process our feelings, a window into the experiences of others and lightness and beauty in dark times. Give us bread, but give us roses too.

But at a time when we are grappling with the need to engage with the world in a fundamentally different way to avoid irreversible climate breakdown, I’d like to gently suggest that the way we engage with pop culture also needs to take on a less passively consumerist and more curious role. I’d love to include hundreds of words here about cosplay, crafts and transformative works, but that might have to be a separate blog post. Buying merchandise is a way that most of us interact with our idols, and I think it’s also a way we can advocate for positive change. Obviously I realise that the main objective of selling merchandise is to make money. But I’d like to suggest that we take inspiration from our heroes and start asking awkward questions of the people who are taking our money. Either that, or grab your embroidery kit, fabric paints or knitting needles and start making your own homages to the things you love.

Rebellion on the High Street! Protesting fast fashion with XR Sutton

Discussing ethical and sustainable fashion with likeminded or open minded friends on social media is great, and I’m thrilled that there’s such a creative and ever-growing community of people who care about clothes, the people who make them and their impact on the environment.

But sometimes I worry that I’m preaching to the choir, that my blog posts aren’t reaching the people who I think need to read them: the people who are trapped in a cycle of buying unsatisfactory clothes and then discarding them on the off-chance that if they do this enough it will make them happy. 

So I was excited when my local Extinction Rebellion group planned an action to protest the destructive nature of fast fashion, which would take place on Sutton High Street. Not only was it a cause I care deeply about, I also felt well-versed enough in fast fashion facts to be able to contribute to the leaflets the group was preparing and even to speak on local radio about the protest. I was also curious (and a little apprehensive) about what the reaction from shoppers might be. Being confronted by the negative aspects of something you enjoy doing can bring on feelings of defensiveness, and it’s often unpleasant and uncomfortable to sit with this reality, and consider how you have contributed to the problem and what aspects of your behaviour need to change.

XR Sutton set up a table in the middle of the pedestrianised High Street outside the shopping centre on Saturday morning, and a group of protesters formed a human washing line, decorated with facts about the fast fashion industry. Other protesters surreptitiously added labels to fast fashion garments in stores, acted as human mannequins in shop windows and staged a die-in. The rest of us handed out leaflets and chatted with shoppers, and I thought it might be interesting to share some of the interactions I had during the three hours I was there.

“I’ve worked in a local charity shop for seven years. We try not to waste any donations - the rag man comes and takes any clothes we can’t sell in the shop. Another girl does the pricing - she knows all about labels. I ask her why those flip flops are £15, and she says “oh, they’re by this designer, and they are over £100 new.” I can’t believe people pay all that money for something then give it away.”

Mum: “we’re just off to a charity shop now to find a costume for my daughter, she wants to be Queen Victoria for a costume day at school.”

Me: “that sounds like fun!”

Mum: “I don’t know where to start!”

Me: “look for a big skirt, something with lace…”

Daughter (very excited): “we’re going to pad my bum with a cushion!”

Mum: *sigh*

“I don’t want a leaflet, weirdo”

Older man: “what kind of person lies in the middle of the road on a Saturday afternoon?”

Younger man with family: “well, I wouldn’t,  but I’m glad some people are, it needs to be done”

Father: “so it’s bad to buy new things?”

Me: “every garment that’s produced has a big environmental impact. If you buy secondhand or keep your clothes for longer you’re reducing that impact and helping to save the planet.”

Father (to daughter): “are you listening? Not too many new things.”

“In my young day (which was a long time ago), no one would dream of throwing clothes away. I didn’t know about the pollution though, that makes me worry. When I was a child, no one had asthma or allergies. Now they all do, because of the pollution. Something’s got to change.”

“WHY AREN’T YOU WEARING HESSIAN SACKS LIKE IN THE OLDEN DAYS?! THAT WOMAN OVER THERE IS WEARING A NICE DRESS! YOU’RE ALL HYPOCRITES!!

“It’s so nice that you’ve got drawing here for the kids to do. We took them to Marble Arch during the April protests and they loved it. We didn’t know there was a local group, we’d be really interested in joining”.

“I don’t want to disrupt the die-in but can you make sure they stay hydrated?”

And probably my most frequent interaction:

Shopper: “so what’s this all about then?”

Me: “we’re trying to raise awareness about the problems with fast fashion; we’re encouraging people to think about whether they really need something new, or whether they could buy secondhand or vintage, or swap clothes with friends.”

Shopper: “I love going to charity shops! I got this *proudly displays item of clothing* from a charity shop, it was a bargain!”

Overall, despite some people flinching away from the Extinction Rebellion leaflets as though they were radioactive, the reactions were more positive than negative. Some people just wanted to ignore us, and the woman who yelled at me left me speechless because her reaction was the exact opposite to what I had been expecting. The complaint I’m used to hearing in discussions about changing our shopping habits is “why can’t I have nice things?” as though sustainable fashion is the very opposite of a nice thing. My fellow fashion activists and all the amazing sustainable brands I know of are all doing their utmost to show that this is not the case, and that sustainable fashion is just what all fashion ought to be - creative, beautiful and kind to people and the planet. To someone who knows quite a bit about fashion history, the “hessian sacks” comment was almost comically ignorant - in the past, clothes were some of the most expensive and treasured possessions a person could own, and were well cared for. Even the “sackcloth” dresses of the Depression era were made from tightly-woven cotton flour sacks (which the flour companies would often print with novelty patterns as they knew the sacks would be re-used for clothing). But there’s no chance of telling someone some interesting facts when all they want to do is have a shout. 

The protest, and the reaction to Extinction Rebellion as a whole, has given me a new facet of activism to think about. Some people who are desperate not to see a change in the status quo will think that you’ve been “caught out” when they point out the fact that you still live within modern society. This is also very much at odds with the online community activism I’ve been taking part in, where the focus is on doing something rather than nothing, and making the small changes that will quickly add up. For the record, I don’t think I’m a hypocrite for wanting to change the world I live in. If I ran away to live in the woods (tempting though it might feel at times), nothing would change; industries would carry on polluting and destroying the planet, and eventually that destruction would come to the woods too. 

I had an interesting conversation with a friend later on that day about the five stages of grief, and how these could relate to people’s reactions to being confronted with the realities of climate change. While XR Sutton as a whole works on getting our local council to declare a climate emergency, and encouraging them to create meaningful change through the implementation of their environmental policies, I’m also going to be working on my personal strategy as a sustainable fashion activist. How do I respond to people’s anger, fear, disbelief and cynicism in a way that’s creative, positive and kind, and doesn’t leave me at risk of burn-out?

If you’re interested in the work that Extinction Rebellion are doing about fast fashion, you can find out more on their Twitter or Facebook.

Photos of the protest taken by fellow Sutton Rebel Bill Mudge.

The Government won't fix fast fashion. Can consumers challenge a destructive industry instead?

It’s no secret that fast fashion is bad for people and the planet. From river systems polluted with toxic dyes and the exploitation of workers at home and overseas, to microfibres from the washing of polyester clothes ending up in the food chain and even the air we breathe, our addiction to cheap clothes is causing us serious harm. 

When the Environmental Audit Committee chaired by Mary Creagh MP published its findings after an in-depth investigation of the fashion industry, many of us hoped that the government would legislate in favour of the report’s recommendations, which included a ban on incinerating or landfilling unsold stock, mandatory environmental targets for large brands and tax incentives for recycling, repairing and responsible brands. 

To the dismay of most of my Twitter timeline on Tuesday morning, the government rejected even these mild regulations in favour of allowing the industry to self-regulate. This was particularly disappointing after recent reports that fast fashion brands are not implementing the changes they had promised to. The future of the Bangladesh Accord (which aims to secure safer workplaces in the wake of the Rana Plaza factory collapse) is also uncertain, so the chance of the industry properly regulating itself is as slim as a teenage catwalk model. 

Environmentalists and climate change activists are hugely concerned about the impact that fast fashion is having on our planet, but even if you’re a fast fashion fanatic you still have reason to be worried. In Elle Magazine’s 2018 Sustainability issue, Marie-Claire Daveau, head of sustainability at Kering, gave this stark warning: “if we don’t do this now, there will be nothing around to make fashion with in 20 years”. If that doesn’t make you quake in your boots, then I don’t know how to help you. If you truly love fashion, then you know it has to change.

So what can we do? As an individual consumer with limited spending power, it’s easy to feel powerless. But if we act together, we can hit the brands doing harm where it hurts - their profits. 

Extinction Rebellion have launched a Boycott Fashion action, where participants pledge to buy no new clothes for a year. If that sounds too daunting, the Collaction Slow Fashion Season has just started, and only lasts for three months.

Both actions make it clear that only brand new fast fashion is off the table. Participants can still buy secondhand and vintage clothes and swap clothes with friends or at a clothes swap. Mending, upcycling and making new clothes is encouraged; it’s a great way of breathing new life into old clothes, and understanding the skill and hard work that goes into garment making.

But what if you really, really, really have to buy something new? Most of us don’t urgently need new clothes, but we do urgently need to change our long-term shopping habits. Instead of panic-buying the first thing we see at the last minute, we can save money in the long run and experience more satisfaction with our purchases if we put a little thought into them. 

Look into ethical and sustainable brands (I’ll put up a post soon with some links in case you don’t know where to start looking) and interrogate your reasons for buying. Is your “need” genuine and urgent (I imagine some of you are dreaming up nightmare scenarios about secondhand underwear) or are you shopping because you are bored or unhappy? Could you get the same shopping “buzz” from having a wander round the charity shops in your local area or liking clothes on Depop and Vinted rather than filling your ASOS basket? 

If you rely on a high street fashion brand for a particular bra size, for example, or your kids school uniform, write to the brand and tell them that you are concerned about the negative impact they are having on the planet. Fashion Revolution have a template letter here if you’re unsure of what to say. 

Alternatively, you can write to your MP to express your disappointment with their rejection of the EAC’s recommendations. Fashion Roundtable has a template letter here.

We need to let fast fashion retailers and the government know that we will no longer accept business as usual. Fast fashion is a recent phenomenon (it barely existed when I was a teenager!) and like any unflattering trend, it has outstayed its welcome. Most of the 20th century’s iconic fashion trends were brought about by innovation and rebellion, so say no to the status quo and challenge yourself to become an icon of rebel style!

Worn Out: the story of the clothes we throw away

Last year, people in the U.K. sent 350000 tonnes of clothes to landfill. I don’t know about you, but I find this impossible to visualise. Even breaking it down to a figure per person - approximately 5kg - it’s hard to imagine what that might look like. So I created Worn Out.

My sister and I, both recovering fast fashion addicts, had bags of clothes that we were absolutely planning to take to textile recycling. One day. When we got around to it. When we weren’t busy with something else. I combined the contents of these bags, and it turns out that this is what 5kg of clothing looks like! 

Before you ask why we didn’t donate these clothes - these weren’t clothes that charity shops or clothes swaps would accept. Threadbare pyjamas, ratty t-shirts, leggings that had burst at the seams, even (gasp!) my old knickers! These are the clothes that are most likely to end up in landfill. 

Even with the best will in the world, our clothes aren’t going to be wearable for ever. While more and more people are embracing secondhand shopping and swapping as a way of ensuring their unwanted clothes won’t go to waste, not every item of clothing is going to be a desirable pre-loved purchase. Most of us are going to end up with a collection of t-shirts, leggings, underwear or worn-out clothes that no one else wants.

While fast fashion isn’t “designed to fall apart”, the choice of cheap fabrics to keep costs down means that basic everyday clothing might be more delicate than we think it is. A washing machine cycle with a high temperature and a fast spin, or tumble drying, can wear down fabrics even faster, leading to a high turnover of clothing in our wardrobes. 

If we send these clothes for textile recycling, they are likely to be downgraded, into stuffing for pet beds, car seats or insulation. At the moment it’s a difficult process to re-use fibres from old clothes, as natural fibres need to be separated from synthetics, and most fast fashion clothing is made from a mixture of both. The shredded fibres then need to be mixed with new fibres in order to spin them into a good quality thread.

While businesses like Rapanui/Teemill and Swedish Stockings are closing the loop in their own supply chain by incentivising customers to return their worn-out clothing, this isn’t happening on a large enough scale to make our current consumption of clothes sustainable.

I’ve constructed Worn Out to show the sheer volume of fabric that could be re-used if we create a more circular fashion system. Think of the possibilities! I wanted Worn Out to look equal parts comical and overwhelming; this is a garment that wears you, and isn’t designed to look flattering (the passing resemblance to the memorable scene in Friends where Joey wears all of Chandler’s clothes isn’t entirely coincidental). The amount of clothing we throw away is absurd, and the way we are encouraged to consume clothing as though it was disposable is absurd. We can’t wear more than one outfit at once, and overconsumption isn’t making us happier or more fulfilled.

Ideally I’d like Worn Out to be an interactive piece of wearable art, something that other people can touch and even try on. It’s going to be making an appearance at the Ethical Influencers meet up and clothes swap for Fashion Revolution Week so hopefully this will be the first of many outings.

As a costume maker and a vintage fashion fan, I’m passionate about clothes as a means of storytelling. Worn Out tells a story about my wardrobe, but it's not the story of favourite clothes or treasured heirlooms. It’s the story of the hidden side of fashion, the parts we don’t show off on social media. It is partly a story of fast fashion failures; the t-shirts with warped seams, the leggings with insufficient elastic, the mistaken belief that fine jersey embellished with metal or plastic can survive a 40 degree wash and spin without ending up full of holes. But it’s also the story of the life I’ve led while wearing these clothes, and how some of them have come to the end of their useful life naturally. My body shape has changed over the years so certain bras no longer fit. Old t-shirts have been downgraded to painting clothes until they are so threadbare that paint has gone right through them. I’ve worn pyjamas for thousands of hours, despite the fact that I don’t really remember it. These clothes have kept me warm in winter, and cool in summer. Some of these clothes have travelled to different countries with me, others have never left my house.

The weight of Worn Out as it settles around your shoulders might feel like a burden, but I prefer to think of it as a reminder of our responsibilities. To look after and appreciate the clothes that hardworking people have made, and to think carefully about what happens to your clothes when you part ways with them.

In case anyone’s wondering what’s left over from Worn Out; it’s not a perfect zero waste garment but I did diligently save every scrap that didn’t make it onto the final design. This little bag of scraps creates an accessory to accompany Worn Out, and serves as a reminder that we can keep improving our ideas for a zero-waste fashion system.

Can we start a Fashion Revolution by telling new stories?

Any fashion or costume creative will tell you that design is about telling stories. You are creating a mood, setting a scene, filling it with memorable characters. It’s easy to see this when we look at a catwalk collection or a lead actor in a sumptuous historical costume, but it’s all too easy to forget when it comes to our own wardrobes.

Bridget Harvey's work in Fashioned From Nature, V&A

Fashion exhibitions have become must-see events in recent years, and alongside sell-out retrospectives like Alexander McQueen and Dior at the V&A, other more personal fashion showcases have also proved extremely popular. The V&A exhibition Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up stayed open overnight so visitors could enjoy a glimpse of the artist’s unique clothing collection. As well as exhibitions of picture-perfect couture, like the Azzedine Alaia retrospective at the Design Museum, curators are also choosing to emphasise the relevance of everyday items of clothing with special cultural significance, like the Fashion and Textile Museum’s T Shirts: Cult, Culture and Subversion exhibition.

Bridget Harvey, V&A artist in residence

The clothes on display don’t have to be pristine pieces in order to make great museum exhibits. I was fascinated, seeing a selection of Isabella Blow’s enviable clothing collection at Somerset House, and realising on closer inspection that these fabulous examples of couture dressmaking showed distinct signs of wear and tear. Even as a dressmaker who knows how much time and effort goes into making a couture garment, it was hard to be annoyed. Isabella Blow has obviously been someone who loved her outlandish clothes so much that she simply had to wear them, even if they weren’t really appropriate for the occasion. 

Signs of wear and tear on a garment are often seen as a bad thing, a sign that the garment is “ruined”. But when the wedding dress I made for my sister ended up with a muddy hem, someone said “ooh, I love the ombré effect!” and we both thought this was brilliant. The dress tells a story of the day; a walk down a woodland path, a sudden cloudburst, a photo shoot in a meadow full of wildflowers.

Visible mending by Bridget Harvey

We are too hard on our clothes, rejecting them before we have even had the chance to get to know them. Maybe because they are so cheap, we see them as disposable, maybe because many of us don’t know much about the processes that go into making clothes. It seems so strange to me that most people will happily spend money on pre-distressed new clothing, but throw a garment away as soon as their life makes an imprint on it. 

Visible mending by Celia Pym

One of the V&A’s current artists in residence, Bridget Harvey, creates work that explores the art of repair and re-making. Discarded pieces of clothing are transformed with a combination of traditional mending techniques and more thought-provoking embellishment. Textile artist Celia Pym has also turned darning into an art form at the V&A, copying every bit of visible mending she completed on garments brought in by members of the public onto a tracksuit as a record of her work. I saw the tracksuit at the Subversive Stitch exhibition at TJ Boulting, alongside work by James Merry, who embroiders discarded logo sportswear with tiny intricate flowers, as though nature is slowly reclaiming our cast-offs.

Embroidery by James Merry

In the run-up to Fashion Revolution Week, Fashion Revolution have launched their latest zine: Fashion Craft Revolution. I submitted a story about my family’s sewing and crafting history, and although it didn’t make it into the zine it did get an honourable mention in this Fashion Revolution Blog Post. I’ll share my story on my blog separately later, but I’d love my readers to see the other beautiful and moving responses to this topic that are also featured in the post. We are sharing our stories in the hope that we can help everyone to see our clothes as part of the fabric of our lives, something rich in storytelling potential. For the sake of everyone on this planet, our clothes (and the people who make them) deserve more than our current throwaway narrative.