An international fashion research project exploring the 'craft of use'

Easy Repair

The fashion industry’s industrial cut and sew techniques produce a polished garment, so polished in fact that it seems complete as is, closed to improvisation from the ‘outside’. But the design and construction of some garments are different, more like a work in progress, open to adaptation and repair and to building understanding about how things are made.

Raw edges endorse repair

"This is one of my favourite sweaters made by a friend of mine Nina French. She collects old sweaters from all over the world. First she boils [them], then cuts them up and pieces them together. There are no two that are alike. And when it does fall apart occasionally, I sew it back up with different thread. …Here’s a 1960s ski sweater, here’s a men’s sweater; each of this has the hand of many women…"

Marin City - July 2012
Photograph by paige Green