The Convention Reformed
Some time has passed since I became aware of the quiet movement to make the repair of garments a feature and also a contemporary art project. Liz Allen had the 2004 Summer Residency at Enjoy Gallery in Wellington. Called Mendt, http://enjoy.org.nz/mendt, Allen and a group of friends spent the time mending garments brought in by the public, often using a barter system to ‘pay’ for the work. The mending was not of the usual ‘invisible’ kind where the repair was made as discretely as possible, but became a colourful intervention.
Research into ways of darning, the history and the current darners has led to the finding of some amazing work by truly skilled artists/craftspersons. Celia Pym http://celiapym.com/ (the featured image is Pym’s work) and Tom, https://tomofholland.com/ are stand outs in the field and their results are an inspiration.
Visible Mending Project TomofHolland
Another important influence for me in this project is Madeline Albright, whose use of brooches (pins) as a subtext to her international diplomatic work is brilliant. In her book Read My Pins, Albright speaks of the evolution of her ideas about how the brooch she chose to wear each day could convey subtle and sometimes not so subtle statements. As America’s Ambassador to the UN during President Clinton’s first term, when Saddam Hussein refused to comply with a UN ruling, she criticized him. A poem in a local Iraqi newspaper labeled her an “unmatched clamor-maker” and an “unparalleled serpent”. Her famous response, when meeting soon after with Iraqi officials, was to wear her serpent pin. Albright also mentions the problems that the brooches caused, that her “clothes began to resemble dartboards, so perforated were they by the pins; eventually, I had to wear more and even bigger ones to mask the destruction” (p.100).
I had begun having ideas about the holes that brooch pins caused some time ago. I was also aware of how companies do like to brand their garments in the place a brooch is traditionally worn and hating to give free promotion I have always covered the offending logo with a brooch. The fine merino is very prone to snagging and it seems to developing holes out of nowhere. These beautiful garments are so comfortable and flexible, moving easily from a sporting context to business to evening. Here was another layer for my project.
We are quick to discard worn and damaged clothing, 200,000 tones of rubbish goes to landfill each year and of that 4% is clothing (according to an article on Stuff, https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/114298459/new-zealand-landfills-are-becoming-full-of-unloved-clothes-as-fast-fashion-grows , an 2018 audit for waste in Christchurch says the amount of fashion and textile waste was 6397 tonnes for that year). There is a real need to examine our consumption of fashion and though many of us will hold on to favourite pieces of clothing as they begin to show signs of wear and tear, we keep them for wearing at home and we’d baulk at the idea or wearing mended clothing in public. In thinking of reforming of a convention. Could I, by spending laborious hours mending, trying for perfect little stitches create value again, entice someone to wear the garment again. The choice to use materials that suggest the same kind of preciousness associated with fine jewellery was inspired by a very old wooden spool of fine gold thread. The thread is a gold coloured metal wrapped around a core of gold coloured silk (I think). The thread was inherited from my Mother who long ago worked making accessories for fashion designers in Melbourne in the 30’s. The thread remains in perfect condition, it is not real gold, but perhaps could be gold plated? Repetitive durational and detailed work is part of my making and so I have embraced the challenge.