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Buying behaviour Opinion pieces Sustainability thoughts

Fashion Revolution – how about a sewing revolution?

written by Kate

‘ Fashion Revolution Sewing Revolution

It’s Fashion Revolution week again. Created after the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh that exposed the grim reality of many garment workers, Fashion Revolution is a movement pushing for transparency within the industry. When it comes to engagement with the public, Fashion Revolution encourages people to ask: “Who made my clothes”? This makes sense seeing as more people buy than sew their clothes. If we look a this question in isolation, the link between Fashion Revolution and the home sewer can be seen to be tenuous; after all, we can say #imademyclothes. But I think we could also be championing a sewing revolution.

A favourite of makers and sewers

A sewing revolution?

Let me start with my take on sewing culture. I have written before about fabric shopping culture and increased commercialism around sewing, but I suspect that within the UK indie market the just-make-more type of sewing attitude might have peaked. In the past few years I have watched social media and maker culture / DIY culture grow massively in the UK. The sewing pattern market is saturated with indie pattern designers (Fiona Parker of Diary of a Chainstitcher was already tracking her own mega list in 2015 and it just keeps growing). The selling point and marketing model for so many of them seems to be clear instructions, nice photos of real people (please catch up already Big 4!), and a lot of blogger led promotions on social media.

This also means there is inspiration to be had wherever you look, even if you are just sharing what you made on Facebook or Instagram or your blog. More often than not for me on social media, the feeling of “I want that” or “I can look like that” or “that’s a nice idea” kicks in. Seeing real people wear things that I can also make myself is infinitely more appealing than an airbrushed model and I know I am not alone in this.

But I would challenge how much I can feasibly sew and wear, how many sewing challenges can I do, how many patterns and fabrics I can buy. This sentiment is starting to be echoed more and I suspect the community is starting to experience some kind of fatigue. I know I am totally fatigued with new easy sews and would rather dream about fantastical creations like this one from Kathryn Brenne (it is even better in person than this photo that I took). Full details on the Emma One Sock blog here

Embroidered mesh dress, Kathryn Brenne

Sustainability is hot right now

I love that sustainability is hot. Running up to 2017, sustainable sewing was pretty much a non-topic. There was only a handful of well-known indie sewing figures talking about it (feel free to tell me that I was hanging with the wrong crowd on Instagram or reading the wrong blogs). But there has been an upsurge; Megan Nielsen and Love to Sew podcast are also on the sustainable sewing bandwagon, using up their stash and leftovers, building a capsule wardrobe etc. I have also seen a few other similarly themed sewing challenges.

The sustainability push makes sense if we consider it in a wider context of sustainable fashion, climate change, and environmental care becoming more mainstream. And of course, lets not forget David Attenborough’s Blue Planet II and the rippling effect it has had on our lives (long live David!) – have you ever seen retailers move so fast on plastic?!

Where is the transparency on our fabric supply chain?

Fashion Revolution action covers the whole fashion supply chain. In the world of home sewing, we are removing only the garment worker. There are still people who grow and make our fibre etc. but many of us probably don’t have this front and centre of our minds when we buy fabric. Whilst the average consumer can ask a brand “who made my clothes?” we still need to be asking who made my fibre? and happily I have seen people acknowledging this on social media.

Fashion Revolution I made your fibre poster

What do we know about the person that holds up this poster?

Wendy Ward said in a recent interview for me that “the key to sustainable sewing is information” and I think she is spot on. How much do you know about your textiles? How many fabric stores can pinpoint where their fabrics come from and who made them? Do you ever ask? The couple of shops I did email did not respond to me or couldn’t tell me. A lot of places I know stock deadstock which is sometimes said to be a sustainable solution (justification on the IndieSew article here) but I suspect there are negatives as well which are worth considering at a later stage on this blog. Learning about textiles is high on my agenda, and I will be posting more on what I find. So far I have written posts on viscose, lyocell, recycled polyester, and a few FAQs on organic fabrics.

So what does a Sewing Revolution look like?

.At an individual level I think this will be different for everyone. At a sewing community level, I think a sewing revolution might already have started. Hopefully the current trend to be more mindful about the clothes we make and the fabrics we buy is set to continue! For myself, here’s the plan for the forseeable future:

My sewing – minimal shopping (I’m 4 months without new to me fabric); planning my sewing so its not making for the sake of it; and a very slow project – more on that coming up soon!
This time to sew blog – more textile info; sustainable fashion articles; interviews with cool people; and opinion pieces to encourage discussion.
Community – #makeyourstash, more for the Sewcialists (if they’ll let me) and maybe a new tiny project…

Project Curious

Fashion Revolution encourages consumers to email this to their brands:

I am your customer, and I love your style. But I want to know more. I want to know#whomademyclothes.
I want to feel as good about the story behind my clothes as they make me feel when I wear them. I care deeply about the people who have worked so hard to make the things I buy from you. I want to know that they’re being treated fairly, have the freedom to speak out, and are paid enough to live with dignity, opportunity, comfort and hope. So tell me, what are you doing to ensure that the people who make your clothes are being paid a living wage?

I think this absolutely applies to us as makers and I want to have answers to all of these things. I have little hesitation in approaching established and well known textile designers / manufacturers such as Atelier Brunette, Art Gallery Fabrics, Robert Kaufmann, Liberty. But I have a dilemma with small indie sewing businesses that I want to support (e.g. fabric shops whose owners I know). Is it too much to ask of them to be probing and demanding like this when they are trying to make a living? What do you think? And please tell me – do you want answers to the Fashion Revolution questions? What do you want to know about your fabrics? Who are your favourite fabric brands that you would be interested in approaching?

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April 27, 2018 15 comments

#makeyourstash Buying behaviour Opinion pieces Sustainability thoughts

On fabric shopping and buying culture

written by Kate

How much happiness do you derive from fabric shopping? (or pattern shopping, or anything else for that matter). My initial suspicion that I was not alone in feeling overwhelmed and not filled with joy with too much stuff turns out to have some sort of basis after all. I am grateful for everyone who has participated in the #makeyourstash conversations on Instagram or reached out to myself or Pilar, sharing how they feel about their stash and often echoing the “too much” sentiment. So the question for today:

Why do so many of us have so much <insert fabric, patterns, other item of choice> and if we don’t like it, why on earth are we still doing it? How can we stop?

I recently listened to an episode of the Wardrobe Crisis podcast by Clare Press, featuring Richard Denniss. He authored “Curing Affluenza” (which I am also reading) where he discusses the madness that is our culture of happiness. We have grown up to believe that status is linked to buying things and then throwing them away – and the more expensive the better! As someone who loves a bit of realism, Richard’s words were utterly refreshing (and he’s Australian which automatically made the podcast even nicer for me). Feeling inspired, here’s my two cents on the matter.

My fabric shopping gives me “transient happiness”

Richard’s description of “transient happiness” is pretty spot on when it comes to my fabric shopping. Over the last few years I have mindlessly amassed a load of stuff. Here’s the breakdown my shopping cycle.

By the time my fabric arrives I have totally lost the excitement I had when I bought it. In my subconscious I have already seen and worn the garment so it is not new and shiny anymore. Which means I was ready to move on… before I even had a happy post day. Honestly the shopping hit of happiness is probably not too different from the social media drug – you might have seen some articles like this one which outlines the addiction (a hit of dopamine with every “like”). As an aside, I feel particularly sad at the thought that social media might be causing childhood depression.

Why do we keep on buying?

I really like the term affluenza as it describes so much of how I feel about the commercialism surrounding sewing that has really grown in the last few years. The makers movement and sewing is often associated with words like slow, considered, mindful. Conceptually this works; you are much more likely to love and care for your clothes if you put in the time and effort to do it yourself.

However being an active participant in the sewing community in the last few years I have also observed that people fall so hard in love with sewing that it almost becomes DIY fast fashion. Every year in the UK there are more patterns, more fabric, more shops and there are definitely trend patterns. Bloggers are everywhere, new resources (e.g. YouTube, books and podcasts) are released frequently, Instagram is huge – and so is the inclination to buy and consume.

Is it a problem?

For many home seamstresses, sewing is a way to avoid fast fashion as we care more about the stuff we make and take the garment worker out of the equation. So the buy, wear once and throwaway cycle is less applicable. However, what IS completely applicable is the tendency to buy a lot of new stuff – especially fabric. Every year there are more small online shops, more indie patterns, more bloggers… Though in the grand scheme of things you could argue the percentage of people who make their own clothes is likely pretty small relative to the mass market so its not really a problem.

Even if not clothing, disposability also permeates other areas of our lives. Single use coffee cups, single use coffee capsules (this can be such a problem you might have heard of Hamburg in Germany banning capsules in government buildings), and of course the ubiquitous plastic water bottles. We grew up in a culture where its ok to use things once and throw them away – and for the most part we still think its ok! <rant over>

Waste does not disappear when you throw it out – it has to go somewhere

What can we do?

Embrace materialism instead of consumerism

This might sound weird – but maybe it would be a good thing. If we are material and love what we buy (instead of loving the act of buying) then we would have a lot less of a problem. In the case of fabric, if I am honest with myself I have loved buying more than having or making. But this is really personal preference. In last week’s “why use up your stash” weekly conversation a few people said that they loved their stash because of the awesome clothes they would make, and because there would always be something to sew when inspiration struck. I really like that they were totally fine with having a lot of stuff because they loved what they had and its useful to them so in that sense it is not wasteful.

Channel your fabric budget into something else

When you make a conscious choice to spend elsewhere other than buying fabric you can make a difference. Richard Denniss makes the argument that the economy doesn’t necessarily stop growing because we stop buying stuff. We still spend money but if we as a collective buy enough other services we can change the shape of the economy. For example, we could buy sewing classes, or spend money altering or fixing our clothes if we didn’t want to do it ourselves. If everyone who had a broken dress zip went to get it fixed or learned to do it themselves instead of buying a new dress, there would be a lot more shops offering to fix these dresses or teach you how to DIY. Pretty comforting thought don’t you think?

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Personally I will be embracing what I have and using what I have via challenges like #makeyourstash, thinking about how much I want to have and clearing out the rest (and not replacing it), and channelling my money and time into other sewing type things. Keep you posted on how it goes!

How happy do you get from buying fabric versus sewing the garment? Are you a minimalist or do you love stuff? Do you unwittingly partake in disposability culture even if not with clothes?

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April 4, 2018 9 comments

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