Material resourcefulness
Garments are fusions of materials and energy brought to the body in myriad configurations, yet the dominant force in fashion, consumerism, tends to value only a narrow spectrum of fashion activity. The practices of material resourcefulness broaden this view and show a burgeoning testing ground of an alternative flows of fibre, fabric and product.
Utilise it all
"Working in the fashion industry, I usually run across a lot of sample fabrics or left over remnants… so I always try to utilise them…
I had this piece of leather for many years and I finally thought that I would play around with it. This was just a skin. So I started to bleach it and I noticed that one side was solid and the other side got bleached so I thought let me wash it. I put it in the washing machine and then the dryer and it got really nice and this is how it came out. And so now I have this really nice –it almost looks like a print so I thought of making a skirt in one piece without any zippers. So I pieced it together. You can see where – there’s no side seam. I pieced it together and I made like a little pleat for closure and I made a makeshift dart over here. I used every little piece of it the skin.
This is the same thing, this is all remnants from cashmere, like pure and I thought it was such a shame because I didn’t have enough to make one thing so I pieced it all together and I made a nice scarf. I just serged it together randomly."
New York - January 2013
Photograph by
Ellinor Stigle
