When I started the Wandle Wardrobe project in September 2020, it was only meant to take a week. Three days to walk the Wandle Trail, three days to create my original two Wandle quilts, and then a day displaying them on the communal field as part of a local art exhibition. I didn’t expect to find enough vintage fabric to make a whole new wardrobe of outfits, or to spend five of the next seven months in lockdown, with my only permitted leisure activity once again being the local walk.
Continuing with the Wandle Wardrobe gave those walks a purpose, and gave me a reason to go outside as often as possible during the winter months when I might otherwise have stayed indoors. The items I found changed with the seasons - a decrease in the number of lost gloves as sure a sign of the approach of spring as the new leaves on the trees. Although I didn’t have a specific end date in mind, the project drew to a natural conclusion in April when restrictions started to lift and I was able to travel further afield and meet up with friends again. The Wandle Wardrobe clothing project will carry on until I run out of fabric, which won’t be for the next year or so!
Lockdown restrictions meant that I didn’t walk further north than Colliers Wood, so the project became slightly more localised, but I still recorded all my finds in the same way - photographing them in situ, before taking them home to be cleaned. The near-constant rain during the winter meant that most of the larger items of clothing I found were beyond saving; heavily mildewed, if not entirely waterlogged. I did find a prom dress and corset that were clean and dry; they eventually found their way to a clothes swap. I’ll always wonder what dating disaster led to these pricey pieces of clothing being hurled into some bushes.
The categories I’d divided my finds into for the first quilt - gloves and socks, and accessories and scraps - divided neatly again into four categories for my second series of quilts, but I realised that I wanted a more permanent (and portable) record of where and what was found than the original twenty-metre fabric representation of the Wandle with its attached Polaroids. I made a double-length quilt with an appliquéd Wandle and its surrounding green spaces from Colliers Wood to Carshalton and Croydon (using fabric I’d found at Watermeads nature reserve), along with a list of found items and the locations of some of the most surprising or plentiful finds.
I also wanted to provide some context since the project had now become something I could exhibit without being present. For the project to have meaning for a wider audience, I included a very brief biography of the Wandle, and description of the project, along with the questions I wanted viewers to consider. I hope that the Wandle Wardrobe will encourage conversations about how we treat our clothes and our green spaces in an entertaining and accessible way.
I’ve loved talking to people about the project and hearing their interpretations of my work - I had some excellent chats while I was stitching two of the quilts in the gardens of Honeywood Museum as part of the Carshalton Artists summer fair. Lots of older people talked about how different their experiences of owning and caring for clothes have been, compared to today’s throwaway culture. One question came up a lot - “what if someone sees one of your quilts and says “that’s mine!”?” I would honestly love it if that happened - I’d happily cut off their item and give it back to them! Although I might want to stitch round it first so it leaves some sort of ghostly impression. I really enjoy how these conversations open up new thoughts and possibilities for me too, creating a dialogue through our lost clothes.
In between washing and cleaning my finds, deciding on the design of each quilt, stitching down several hundred pieces of lost textile, cataloguing where I found what, and working out exhibition logistics, I haven’t had much opportunity to reflect on a year-long project. So last weekend I walked the Wandle again, in the opposite direction (from the Thames to the sources) to create a small piece of textile art as I walked, and to spend some time with my thoughts and enjoy the beauty of my local green spaces. I’ll be writing about this in a separate post, but it reminded me that you can look at an area in broad strokes or minute detail. The more you notice, the more you notice what’s wrong (the litter) as well as what’s right (the variety of bird and insect species). Focusing solely on what’s wrong is emotionally draining, so it’s important to allocate time to appreciate the good things around too, and sometimes it’s nice to reset your perception of your local area by just walking with a very different purpose and seeing what you notice instead.
