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

Skills of resourcefulness

Creative activists contribute greatly to society through innovation and experiment, taking on projects that fail to hit the radar of conventional industry. Their work is a training ground for new practices, for trialling novel approaches and reviving old skills that promote alternative ideas about fashion provision and consumption.

Thrift treasure

"This is a wool jacket and I bought it at a thrift store with my grandmother in Oregon in 2007 and the label is Gianni Petite, made in the USA…. It’s a really lovely wool. It’s fine and soft and very warm and absolutely ideal for San Francisco. It’s not too heavy, not too thick. It’s a great weight. I like the fact it’s made in the USA. 

You can’t really find that anymore, especially something of this quality and the fact I found it in a thrift store with my grandmother is also special for me because I grew up thrifting with my grandmother. She’s very frugal. She grew up during the Depression and she only buys stuff in thrift stores. Everything in her home; her furniture, her cookware, her clothes, everything is from thrift stores. And I’ve definitely learned how to thrift because of her… to walk down the aisle and recognise good fabric […] good, like, well made textile… 

Like this is wool, this is cashmere, these are different blends of wool, this is cotton and 100% always. It can’t be a blend. She only does 100%. So I’m able now to go down the aisles really quickly and sometimes just through touching or sometimes just visually finding the pieces of clothing that stand out due to the material they’re made out of. I’ve had women offer me hundreds of dollars for this jacket on the street and it’s amazing how many women ask me, ‘where did you get that? I love that coat."

San Francisco - April 2011
Photograph by Paige Green

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