by Sandra Jäger
SJ: What does mending and craft mean to you, what are some of your favourite clothing care practices?
KF: Mending and craft is for me a physical and practical manifestation of care - for resources, for objects, for relationships, for my family. It is a way of provisioning, a form of husbandry, a practice of attentiveness and timely intervention. Sometimes it is the best. Sometimes it is a chore.
My favourite clothing practices, those that I do with relish, include brushing and de-pilling woolen knitwear with a fabric comb. There’s something about the strong regular strokes that I love. I also darn a lot of things. I have gathered from lots of different colours of darning wool over the years from charity shops and second hand markets. To use these and a darning mushroom is a pleasure.
SJ: In which ways do you think mending could alter our approach to fashion?
KF: Mending is a form of minding, as in being in a state of actively caring about fashion. It makes me, at the very least, be alive to material qualities, to the way my body impacts clothes, to how I move, what I can go on to do because of what I am wearing. This is a different origin story for fashion than the one that consumerism and economic growth imperatives tells us.
SJ: What do you view as the future for "fashion," perhaps specifically in education?
KF: Fashion's future lies in becoming unhitched from the logic of economic growth. Its future lies in reimagining fashion as a plural set of actions and relationships that are rooted in authentic needs. Its future lies in reconceptualising fashion as dependent on others, that nothing stands alone, with more mutualistic frameworks at its core. For education, this means a bold break from the way things have been done in the past. It means a new emphasis on learning for ambiguity, complexity, situatedness, creativity, agency, natural wisdom, indigenous ways of knowing….
SJ: What makes you happy about fashion and what makes you anxious?
KF: Happy - the moments of pleasure gained from an outfit “fitting” time, place and person. There’s a special rightness and creativity in this moment, an inventiveness of imagination and practical action.
Unhappy - the near-total dominance of experiences and ideas of fashion by the logic of more, a linear view of progress, of increasing consumption of new items, of the use of synthetic fibers to fulfill this growth, despite their lack of suitability for many end uses and other impacts etc, etc.
SJ: What advice do you have about creativity for young people interested in fashion?
KF: Creativity isn’t just something confined to brands or designers. Look for it, recognise and spread it out more widely, seeing creative actions also taking place in communities, in bedrooms, between friends, in nature…
Bios:
Sandra Jäger completed her BA in Design Culture and Economics at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) with a focus on critical fashion studies, gender studies, and sustainability. She is the Editor in Chief of The Critical Pulse magazine, as well as a contributing writer, editor, illustrator, and project manager. Her other work includes graphic design, museum guided tours, and teaching. She is currently working on her MA in Design Studies at SDU.
Kate Fletcher, PhD, is a Professor at the Royal Danish Academy, Copenhagen and at Oslo Metropolitan University in Norway. She is one of the most cited scholars in fashion and sustainability, and her work, including that on systems change, post-growth fashion, fashion localism, decentring durability and Earth Logic (2019), defines and challenges the field. She has written and/or edited eleven books available in eight languages. Kate is a co-founder of the Union of Concerned Researchers in Fashion. Her most recent work is about design, clothing and nature.
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