Super Long Life
Making a garment last is very different to making a long-lasting garment. Enduring use is often difficult to predict. It is specific and personal and linked more with ways of thinking, experiences and memories than materials. Finding ways to access these may be critical to third, fourth or fifth lives.
Childhood to adult use
"This was my jumper when I was seven. My mother bought if for me on an office trip overseas to Japan [when she went to] Tokyo Disneyland. And when she first purchased if for me I was too embarrassed to wear it because of the colour and the pictures.
So this was in a cupboard, hidden, lost for a very long time… but I wear it now. I’m not the same size [as I was when I was seven]. It’s actually quite a bit shorter. But I think from laundering it somehow kind of stretches a little... I don’t know I think because it’s knit so I kind of get away with wearing it just a little too small… I didn’t grow very much (laughs)"
Melbourne - March 2013
Photograph by
Paul Allister