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

My Community

In smaller communities people can more easily see the effects of their own actions on each other and the environment. They can also better understand the ramifications of their choices; allowing them to take responsbility for them. Expressing community through our garment choices sews the seeds of a new type of self-reliance in fashion based on connection to people and place.

Low waste nation

“This is my shirt for the traditional [East Telemark, Norwegian] national costume which I embroidered myself when I was about fourteen. You’re supposed to fill in everything but I took the short cut and just embroidered the [out]line. You embroider the neck, the two front pieces and the same thing with the sleeve and afterwards it’s mounted onto the shirt itself. That is done by a professional…people who do that for a living, mount national costumes. And it’s constructed in rectangles so that you make good use of material. And for the actual national costume itself it’s constructed so that you can adjust it when you get fatter....”

Oslo - March 2011
Photograph by Kristin von Hirsch