Swapping the clothes we own, and learning to alter them, is a great way to reduce how much we buy and to appreciate new ideas of ownership and care. It is also makes you feel that you are participating in something rather than just passively buying whatever is in the shops.
This idea of participation and activism is on the increase in all parts of society, thanks to the internet and a renewed interest and engagement from consumers. Within the fashion industry, as the monolithic brands continue to try and convince us of the latest 'must-have' trends, there are a few designers and artists who are offering a more participatory model of how to be a fashion consumer, or what's called 'fashion activism'.
Matrushka Clothing are a clothing label who also run T construction in Los Angeles, an ongoing performance-based event of onsite sewing. The idea is that participants design their own tshirt and then watch it being made up by a team of skilled seamstresses.
Due to the loss of individual sewing skills and the globalisation of the garment industry, there is a gap in our understanding of how clothes are made. By watching the process of construction maybe we will learn to appreciate the work and skill that goes into clothes making and this may affect how we buy and care for our clothes.
Otto van Busch is another designer who creates participatory events and workshops around what he calls 'fashion hacking' - a collective sharing of how to "reverse engineer fashion". Participants learn how to deconstruct, customise and re-adapt garments to their own designs.
Although these are underground events with a small audience, there have been recent glimmers of hope even in the mainstream. Blood, Sweat & Tshirts, aired recently on the BBC, followed a group of young fashion addicts from the UK who were sent to work in garment factories in India to discover how tough the working conditions are. Two of the girls involved have since become passionate advocates for promoting ethical practices within the fashion industry and have called themselves 'ethical pests'.
Image: www.shrwr.org, www.selfpassage.org
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