This is a reflective and analytical piece I wrote about the process and ideas that impacted how and why I made a garment made from scrap laces. 

As a child I would make dresses for my dolls out of tissues, rubber bands and blue tack. They were never very permanent nor structurally sound, but they allowed me uninhibited play and freedom to create. The tissues would tear very easily, so I learned to develop a gentle touch and a lot of patience. My tissue paper dresses inspired my lace creation, with pins, scrap laces and my mannequin as my new canvas, or me-sized doll. Jigsaw puzzles were another of my fond pastimes, developing my keen eye for details, shapes and colours. I found myself using a puzzle-like approach with my fabrics and my mannequin form, seeing which pieces fit together and working from there. The process was satisfying and enjoyable to experience creating something through rekindling my childhood creative spirit and approach to design. I felt unity with my hands and mind from being able to actualise my ideas and visions into a real, and surprisingly beautiful object. It was not perfect, but the acceptance and peace of knowing that I did not need to make something perfect allowed to make this with so much more ease. My masterpiece only needed to be a piece of my mastery, and so I felt accomplished.  

Each lace I used had a story. If a fabric was in my scraps tub it had been used at least once before. I could remember each lace and the pieces I had made for customers, now scattered all around the world. This patchwork lace piece suddenly held my nostalgia and reminiscence for all that I had created prior. An homage in the form of a collage! 

Creation versus production

I have become increasingly aware of the difference between creation, which I consider as uninhibited making and freedom of the body and mind to work together in creative pursuit, and production; which is highly purposeful and outcome-driven making. The latter has been of main influence on my work as a seamstress, as I have predominantly only made things if they are to be sold. This has cultivated my sewing skills but has also restrained my creative potential in many ways. I feel I should not spend time making things if they are not able to be duplicated and remade precisely and to the highest quality for my customers. In these varied processes and mindsets of making, I have found that to make can be to create or produce, but to create without restraint or utmost precision is far more fulfilling.  

Craft is often seen a less prestigious form of creation, whereas art is relegated for truly transformative work that captures ideas and emotions (Gauntlett, 2011). Although the threshold for these definitions and their usages is highly subjective, craftspeople and people who make practical objects are commonly not regarded as highly as artists. Gauntlett (2011) presents the notion that making is connecting, and the distinctions we have discursively and societally moulded around the substantive differences between art and craft have unjustifiably undermined the value of making, even in its imperfection or mundaneness. Sewing is an extremely devalued skill, evident most notably through the exploitation of production workers globally, and the Western disposable attitude we have cultivated toward fashion and clothing. I consider my pieces as intimate, wearable art. Yet I still feel a sense of doubt and misrecognition in my work when the skills I employ are often seen as less than my intellectual or entrepreneurial capacities. I have noticed parallels with how values associated with environmentalism and less anthropocentric living are increasingly looked down upon, or conversely, only available to those privileged enough to have the time to engage in such idle or non-economically productive work. Things such as caring for the land, growing food, making your own clothes, have become increasingly emblematic of a slow and old-fashioned life, no longer compatible, desirable or feasible for modern fast-paced, and hyper-consumerist individuals.

Wearing waste  

Binotto and Payne (2017) highlighted three different ways of considering waste in fashion; as a problem, as feedstock for new designs, or as an aesthetic and poetic element, whereby “waste is elevated rather than disguised” (p. 6). Without directly intending to portray fashion in this way, my creation seems to align with this third representation of waste. Binotto and Payne explain the primary difference between the second and third uses of waste in fashion is in the creation of something that looks new. Even when using recycled or reclaimed fabrics, designers often repurpose waste into clothing or accessories that then appear brand new. However, by choosing to centre and elevate ‘waste’, a more poetic approach lends itself to highlighting the elements of waste and their hidden meaning and value (Binotto & Payne, 2017). By calling to attention how a piece was made and what it was made from, fashion can be more disruptive, “intimate, sensorial and profound” (Binotto & Payne, 2017, p. 7). This happens through reinscribing value to otherwise rejected materials, in other words, amplifying the “congealed life in discarded things” (Edensor, 2005 as cited in Binotto & Payne, 2017, p. 7). I intentionally avoided neatening or refining the edges of the fabrics I used on my piece, as I wanted it to be evident at first glance that this was a piece made from scrap materials. Hanging edges and jagged seams are not disguised, but readily exposed and incorporated into the aesthetic. The use of offcut fabrics is something to be outwardly expressed and recognised.  
  

Fashion and posthumanism

Building on how we might better engage with and think about waste, Žižek (2009 as cited in Binotto & Payne, 2017) powerfully states, “the true spiritual challenge is to develop ... a kind of emotional attachment to, or to find meaning in, useless objects” (p. 7). Clothes, fabrics, and ultimately all objects hold some inherent value in addition to their materiality, and outwardly acknowledging and embracing these realities can better shift overly human-centric and hyper-commodified thinking. Reconceptualising the agency of objects can be explained by the concept of object-oriented ontology, where objects are considered equal with little distinction between types of things (Snaza et al., 2014). This complements posthumanism, the worldview that critically dismantles the idea that humans are “at the centre of the universe.” (Vänskä, 2018, p. 27). This occurs through decentring humans and challenging the ideological foundations of humanity, and when coupled with an object-oriented ontology can reconceptualise the agency, reality and materiality of things.  
  
These ideas are relevant to fashion and environmentalism as humanism has heavily impacted both. Humans have so dramatically interfered with the ecosystem in a desire to conquer and extract all that is possible in pursuit of humanity’s growth and advancement. Posthumanism considers humans and their interrelations with nature and technology in more nuanced, critical and less separable ways. Vänskä (2018) explored how fashion can be considered a technology of the self, in that it functions performatively as an indicator of human distinction, value and status. She states, “clothing is never just clothing; it is a performative act, a process of fashioning in the sense of giving material form and value” (2018, p. 26). This can explain how waste in fashion can appear confronting or ideologically disruptive, as clothing harbours deeper value beyond its mere materiality, a concept which inevitably requires posthumanist thinking. Vänskä further articulates that the concept of the human is malleable, and like fashion, not self-evident, with both ultimately being “ideological projects” subject to continual change (2018, p. 28).

  
Creating with care

Consequently, arguably much of the same social forces which drive environmental degradation concurrently seep into and muffle the agency, creativity, and spirit of human life. Gauntlett (2011) emphasised that individual self-expression and creativity are vital to individuals and community, therefore contending there is a moral imperative that human creativity must be nurtured as a core value of society. However, the rational and profit-driven worldviews of capitalism have cemented divisions in labour, through separating intellectual work from the physical (Gauntlett, 2011). This is captured by Gauntlett’s statement that “a human being can be forced to work as a ‘tool’, following the precise instructions of their masters, making things correctly, but they are dehumanised, and their spirit is gagged” (p. 30).

In opposition to these dominant sociocultural norms, an affective motivation underlies many of my decisions and pursuits, which fosters a parallel care for the more-than-human world. Martusewicz (2014) explores how the repression of care and sensitivity become increasingly normalised in adult life. She advocates for guiding our actions and intellect based on love, predominantly to compensate for and prevent further anthropocentric destruction of the environment and its inhabitants. By choosing to prioritise love and care as guiding forces we can nurture not only our own spirits but that which surrounds us. For years I chose not to discard my scrap fabrics even though I had no immediate use for them but believing that I could find use for them. This was a conscious action guided by care for my materials and happened to align with an ethos of sustainability. Additionally, by holding on to these objects – things which could be considered waste – because of an imagined potential I believed they carried could be an example of de-centring myself to some degree (as I had no immediate use or intention to use the scrap materials). Although I still ultimately used these objects for my own goals and purposes, the power and choice to discard, keep or use things later can enable us to grapple with the ideas of things having their own motivations, agency and reality outside of humans’ assigned usage of them.

Conclusion

Ultimately, to make is to allow creation and connection (Gauntlett, 2011). Fashion has the potential to allow for self-expression and socio-culturally perform our identities, but also has harmful roots in overconsumption, egocentrism and humanism, exploitation of garment production workers and ever-exacerbating environmental damage. I truly enjoyed exploring these ideological and material tensions whilst creating my masterpiece, and hoped to have captured and evoked thinking about how we can manage waste and nurture the affective, explorative and crafty natures of humans who care. Care not only about what they make and how it benefits them, but that the act of making is to engage with the agency of what is not human and appreciate it so.