RMIT PlaceLab ‘Wear & Care’ Community Repair Series. Image: RMIT PlaceLab.

Brunswick 3
CYCLE 02 2023

Wear & Care

Wear & Care

Long Story, Short

An exploration into methods of fashion “rewilding” in Brunswick. Gathering locals, retailers, and researchers to learn about and encourage practices that mend, repair and share clothing to build a local response towards a new fashion system.

What We’re Exploring

‘Wear & Care’ considers Brunswick’s future as a creative fashion district by exploring methods of fashion “rewilding” accessible to the community. The changing fashion landscape depends on shifting values and approaches to transform how we produce and consume to new positive ways of experiencing fashion that aligns people and planet. Local fashion “rewilding” supports new cultures in how we better use, make and recreate clothing. The project will include local workshops, community discussions, surveys and an exhibition supporting existing sustainable fashion practices in Brunswick, alongside shareable resources and fashion forums with RMIT School of Fashion & Textiles exploring emerging research.

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Project Team

Researcher
Woman smiling wearing earring.
Hayley Thompson

RMIT PlaceLab Research Assistant

Researcher
Woman smiling with glasses.
Nhu Bui

RMIT PlaceLab Research Assistant

Project and Local Contributors
Dr Louise Godwin

Wear & Care Summary Report.

The ‘Wear & Care’ Summary Report is here!

We considered Brunswick’s future as an existing creative fashion district by exploring methods of fashion “rewilding” accessible to the community.

We gathered locals, retailers, makers, creators, and researchers to learn about and encourage practices that mend, repair and share clothing, to build a local response towards a new fashion system.

The future for Brunswick’s fashion district has the potential to create more accessible “rewilding” practices. We identified three potential opportunities related to community initiatives and activations, support for community “activators”, and storytelling and experience sharing. This summary also brought forward potential considerations such as funding and support for community repair initiatives.

Together, we’re tackling real-world, urban challenges and seeking innovations that improve liveability, community resilience and connection.

This summary will be shared with out local government and industry partners. Please feel free to send this link on to anyone or any organisation that might be intrigued.

Explore more in our full summary available to download from the ‘Download Report’ button above.

‘Stories of Wear & Care: The Lives of Garments and the Stories They Hold’.

‘Stories of Wear & Care: The Lives of Garments and the Stories They Hold’

This book is a collection of 24 garment-led stories gathered across six semi-structured, in-person group conversations with people from our Brunswick, Merri-bek and wider Melbourne community, as part of the ‘Wear & Care’ Research Project.

‘A Garment’s Life: Conversation Series’ was created to cultivate discussions about how we wear and care for our clothing in ways that support a “rewilding” of fashion. “Rewilding” fashion describes actions that support new cultures in how we better use, make and recreate clothing, and how we experience fashion outside of the commercial industry.

One of our key research aims was to bring together local people to learn about their practices of mending, repairing and sharing clothing that support a community response towards developing a new fashion system. The research had a particular focus on activities embraced in the home or collaboratively in the community. Taking into consideration the changing fashion landscape in Australia and shifting social values in Brunswick, Melbourne, we used garment-led interviews and storytelling to establish a safe and supportive environment in which people could share their lived experiences naturally and honestly.

Our Community Collaborators were invited to bring along a garment from their wardrobe that had been mended, repaired, or shared, or a special garment with a story behind it. We gathered groups of three to five Collaborators, with each person, in turn, presenting their chosen piece and generously sharing the tales it told, allowing each garment to guide the narrative. The clothing textures, tatters, embellishments, stains, markings, and mends were illuminated by stories of loss, change, connection, joy, optimism, and reclamation.

Local contemporary artist Jody Haines joined each session to document the clothing through photographs and to create a garment-centred portrait with each of our Community Collaborators.

Content pages in our community book, ‘Stories of Wear & Care’.

Although we began with an open but simple proposition of what to bring along, the stories themselves expanded to encompass far more than what flaw, spill or general wear and tear may have been mended, or how a garment was shared and with whom. The stories alongside the group conversations revealed intricate weavings of values, influences, motivations, memories, relationships, and practices. The garments formed markers of moments in life, statements of values, tools to signify care and to nurture relationships, and connectors between siblings, grandparents and grandchildren, mothers and daughters.

In this book, alongside the stories, we offer eight themes emerging out of the conversations that speak to both the complexity of our connections to clothes and contemporary understandings of fashion explored deeply in academic fashion discourse far beyond the purpose of this book.

The intent of this book is to celebrate the lives of garments and the stories they hold. It offers a glimpse into the humble practices embedded in the clothes that support a “rewilding” of fashion. In reading this collection, we wish to generate a deeper consideration of your own wear and care practices, captured amongst the garments living in your wardrobe. You might be a wearer, a clothing sharer, a mender, or a garment maker. In whatever way you position yourself in connection to the garments you own, wear, repair, or share, we hope you might find a little of yourself reflected within this book that inspires you to share your own garment stories.

The story of Michelle’s Jacket in our community book, ‘Stories of Wear & Care’. Image: Tess McCabe.

Portraits of some of our Community Collaborators and their garments, featured in ‘Stories of Wear & Care’. Photos: Jody Haines.

RMIT PlaceLab would like to thank our Community Collaborators for generously sharing their insights across our Conversation Series, and for trusting us with their portraits and heartfelt stories in compiling this book: Nuwan Rohitha, Joy Barrett, Sanjana Alex, Yuko Hattori, Hannah Perkins, Jingyi Luo, Clare Morgan, Elena Warden, Eloise Warburton Davies, Utkarsh Agarwal, Rosie Leverton, Michelle Loft, Cale Perrin, Muhammad Danish Saiful Rizal, Anna Cavaleri, Paula Hanasz, Olivia Sutherland, Helen Hill, Elissa Mertens, Imelda Cooney, Jodie McNeilly, Lia Vandersant and Arky Ryall.

The Team behind the Book

All of the photographs featured in this book were created by our collaborator and photographer, Jody Haines. We are very grateful to Jody for her beautiful documentation of the garments and the respectful creation of each portrait. Jody is an artist based in Naarm/Melbourne and a PhD candidate in the School of Art at RMIT University.

The design of this book was created by Tess McCabe, a graphic and web designer living and working in Brunswick, Victoria (Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung country). We appreciate the care and consideration Tess has applied in beautifully portraying this special collection.

Our RMIT PlaceLab team and project contributors involved in the Conversation Series and the creation of this book include Hayley Thompson, Louise Godwin, Nhu Bui, Frances Gordon, Kiri Delly and Brock Hogan.

This book is Printed in Victoria by Bambra Press.

Creating and releasing our community book, ‘Stories of Wear & Care: The Lives of Garments and the Stories They Hold’. Images: RMIT PlaceLab and Suzanne Phoenix.

Request a Copy of the ‘Stories of Wear & Care’ Book

If you missed the chance to grab a printed copy of the book at our exhibition, don’t worry because we have made it accessible digitally.

> Download ‘Stories of Wear & Care’ Book here.

To request a digital copy of the book, simply send us an email via this address: hello@placelab.rmit.edu.au. Our PlaceLab Team will respond as quickly as we can, and provide you with the full digital book file.

Thank you for your patience and interest in reading our book ‘Stories of Wear & Care: The Lives of Garments and the Stories They Hold’!

‘Wear & Care’ Activation Kit

As part of RMIT PlaceLab’s ‘Wear & Care’ Research Project, this activation kit is a collection of insights, ideas and inspirations from the Research Project to activate fashion rewilding practices within your home or local community.

‘Wear & Care’ considered Brunswick’s future as a creative fashion district by exploring methods of fashion “rewilding” accessible to the community.

The Research Project included a series of community repair workshops, a research survey on “rewilding” fashion for the community, a student second-hand clothing redesign display, a research survey for Brunswick-based second-hand clothing retailers, several garment-led group conversations, a community forum in collaboration with RMIT’s School of Fashion & Textiles, and finally a ‘Wear & Care’ Exhibition.

This Kit forms part of a collection of outputs and resources emerging out of ‘Wear & Care’ and focuses on sharing learnings from the Project to guide local fashion rewilding practices.

We aim to share it with our community, local place-making partners like Merri-bek City Council, the Brunswick Design District (BDD), and beyond!

‘Wear & Care’ Activation Kit Folder.

What is included in the Activation Kit:

  • 1x ‘Wear & Care’ Activation Kit Folder (A4)
  • 1x Community Clothing Repair Guide Booklet (A4)
  • 1x Clothing Repair Decision Tree Poster (A3 folded)
  • 3x Community Initiative Flyers (A5)
  • 10x Activation Cards (A6)

 

Unravel Community Clothing Repair – A Guide

This compilation from our ‘Wear & Care’ Research Project is designed to help you activate clothing repair in your community. It is not a definitive guide, but rather a collection of our insights to help empower you to bring your community on a repair journey too.

> Download Community Clothing Repair Guide Booklet

Community Clothing Repair Guide Booklet.

Clothing Repair Decision Tree Poster

We created this ‘decision tree chart’ based on the community’s vote at our ‘Wear & Care’ Community Forum. Among the three options to vote from, ‘How to Engage in Clothing Repair’ was determined by the community to be the most useful to add to the collection in our Activation Kit.

> Download Clothing Repair Decision Tree Poster

Clothing Repair Decision Tree Poster (A3 folded).

Community Initiative Flyers

This set of three Community Initiative Flyers reflects some of the passionate organisations, community activities and solo practices we learnt about throughout the ‘Wear & Care’ Research Project. We hope this will inspire you to create and participate in your own local community initiatives.

> Download Community Initiative Flyers

Community Initiative Flyers.

Activation Cards

The RMIT PlaceLab ‘Wear & Care’ Research Project has gathered ‘everyday’ practices that support a local response to “rewilding” fashion.

This Activation Card collection is inspired by the local actions and insights we’ve learnt from our community of wearers, repairers, creators and retailers.

Use these cards to build your own methods and mindsets around how to better wear and care for clothes in your wardrobe, home and neighbourhood.

> Download Activation Card Collection

Activation Cards Collection.

‘Wear & Care’ Activation Kit. Photos: Vanessa Duque.

Alternatively, Download All Our Activation Kit Files in a Zip Folder!

The Team behind the Activation Kit

Our RMIT PlaceLab team, project contributors and collaborating researchers involved in the creation of this Activation Kit include Hayley Thompson, Nhu Bui, Julia English, Louise Godwin, Frances Gordon, Kiri Delly and Brock Hogan.

With many thanks to our collaborating researchers Dr. Georgia McCorkill and Dr. Rebecca Van Amber from RMIT’s School of Fashion & Textiles and ‘Repair Cafe at RMIT’, contributing repair and alterations workshop facilitators Tamara Russell and Sang Thai and our wonderful Community Collaborators and attendees across the ‘Wear & Care’ Research Project activities, with special mentions to Paula Hanasz, Michelle Loft and Arky Ryall who’s words appear in the Activation Kit.

Dr. Harriette Richards. Photo courtesy of Dr. Harriette Richards.

Meet our RMIT PlaceLab ‘Wear & Care’ Research Project Academic Collaborator:

Dr. Harriette Richards from RMIT’s School of Fashion & Textiles.

Dr. Harriette Richards is a cultural studies scholar whose work focuses on ethical and sustainable fashion systems, consumer culture, and fashion in the settler colonial imagination. She is co-founder of the Critical Fashion Studies research group and co-host of the ‘Critical Fashion Studies’ podcast. Her work has been published in a range of journals including Cultural Studies, Gender, Work & Organization, Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, Australian Feminist Studies and the International Journal of Crime, Justice and Social Democracy. She has also been published in the edited collections Rethinking Fashion Globalization (Bloomsbury 2021) and Fashion and Feeling: The Affective Politics of Dress (Palgrave Macmillan 2023). In 2021, she co-edited a ‘Fashion Futures’ special issue of Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies with Professor Natalya Lusty and Dr. Rimi Khan.

 

It was a pleasure to have Harriette collaborating with us as part of our ‘Wear & Care’ Research Project and facilitating our recent ‘Wear & Care’ Community Forum discussion!

“The local community can certainly contribute to more ethical and sustainable engagement with fashion through participation in alternative forms of consumption, for example through second-hand shopping, clothing swaps and sharing. However, they can also contribute by engaging in conversations about the ethics and sustainability of the fashion industry and sharing these conversations with their loved ones.”

Can you tell us a bit about your own research and how it intersects with RMIT PlaceLab’s ‘Wear & Care’ Research Project?

My work broadly investigates issues of ethics and sustainability in fashion. This has included research about the impact of Modern Slavery legislation on consumer behaviour and industry practice in Australia, and research about ‘radical transparency’ in fashion.

Currently, I am conducting research that looks at the role of ethical and sustainable third-party accreditation and certification systems for Australian fashion social enterprises and how such accreditation might encourage or support improved production and consumption practices.

How do you think the current sustainable fashion landscape is doing? (Locally, Nationally, and Globally?)

Globally, I think there have been some positive moves in the right direction, especially with government legislation such as the Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles in Europe, and the Fashion Sustainability and Social Accountability Act in New York. Nationally, the Seamless scheme is encouraging, although I do think it requires legislating and enforcing in order to achieve what it sets out to accomplish. It is often at the local scale where the most radical, grassroots action takes place and we can see that here in the form of repair cafes, the rise of mending workshops and the demand for alternative services, all of which indicate an increasing awareness of and concern for the sustainability of our clothes.

What are some ways the local community can actively and practically contribute to a more ethical and sustainable approach to fashion?

The local community can certainly contribute to more ethical and sustainable engagement with fashion through participation in alternative forms of consumption, for example through second-hand shopping, clothing swaps and sharing. However, they can also contribute by engaging in conversations about the ethics and sustainability of the fashion industry and sharing these conversations with their loved ones. Understanding the scope and complexities of the issues is very much the first step in the process of system change.

What are some interesting initiatives, individuals or organisations doing exciting things along the continuum of fashion ‘taming’ and ‘rewilding’?

It was wonderful to be involved in RMIT PlaceLab’s ‘Wear & Care’ panel and to hear from people who are doing wonderful, exciting things to disrupt and challenge the mainstream fashion system. The panellists were:

  • Cathy Allizi from the Multicultural Women’s Sewing Group, teaching and supporting women from diverse backgrounds to sew.
  • Kirsta Hawkins from Mutual Muse, a second-hand consignment store in Brunswick and Thornbury.
  • Luke Phillips from Into Carry, which makes bags out of post-consumer waste.
  • Jennifer Thorman from Second Stitch, which employs and educates new migrant women.
  • Miriam Borcherdt, PhD Candidate at RMIT.

 

If you would like to keep up to date with Dr. Harriette Richard’s work, follow her on Instagram at @harrietterichards and @criticalfashionstudies.

Dr. Harriette Richards facilitating the ‘Wear & Care’ Community Forum discussion. Photo by Vanessa Duque.

Collaborating researchers Georgia McCorkill, Julia English, Rebecca Van Amber as part of the ‘Wear & Care’ Research Project.

Collaborating researchers Georgia McCorkill, Julia English, Rebecca Van Amber as part of the ‘Wear & Care’ Research Project. Photos courtesy of Georgia McCorkill, Julia English, and Rebecca Van Amber.

Meet our RMIT PlaceLab ‘Wear & Care’ Research Project Academic Collaborators:

Dr. Georgia McCorkill, Dr. Rebecca Van Amber and PhD candidate Julia English, from RMIT’s School of Fashion & Textiles.

Dr Georgia McCorkill is a Lecturer in design within the School of Fashion and Textiles. Her practice-based research explores sustainable design strategies applicable to bespoke and micropreneur contexts such as upcycling, repair, and co-design. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and festivals within Australia. Her current project ‘Fashion Fix’ investigates garment repair from industry, community, creative, and activist perspectives. Georgia has applied her research into sustainable and circular design to the development and delivery at scale of subjects that embed new processes for creating and making from textile waste as a core competency for students in the Bachelor of Fashion (Design).

Dr Rebecca Van Amber is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Fashion and Textiles at RMIT University, and is an expert in textile materials, sustainability, research and development, and methods to design out waste in the circular economy for fashion. Rebecca was a winner of the 2017 H&M Foundation’s ‘Global Change Award’s’ Innovation Challenge.

Julia English is a PhD candidate and reuse fashion practitioner, who draws on her design and communication skills to share knowledge around textile reuse. Her PhD, “Collaborations for remake: Participation in practice”, focuses on understanding existing practices around collaboration to remake unwanted textiles, and this has included sharing her research interviews via her podcast, ‘Seam Change’. Julia is a sessional teacher at RMIT around sustainable fashion practices and runs workshops with local councils teaching repair techniques.

We are pleased to have worked with Georgia, Julia, and Rebecca, and their students in exploring the landscape of fashion rewilding practices in Brunswick as part of our research activity!

Georgia McCorkill, Rebecca Van Amber and Julia English leading the ‘Wear & Care’ Community Repair Series workshops. Photos by RMIT PlaceLab.

“Ways to engage in fashion as a cultural and expressive force beyond the expected processes of shopping for new clothes is key to the ‘Wear and Care’ Project and our focus on mending as a community and creative pursuit is a tangible demonstration of one way that this can be achieved.”

– Dr Georgia McCorkill

Can you tell us a bit about your own research and how it intersects with the RMIT PlaceLab ‘Wear & Care’ Research Project?

Julia: My research focus is about learning from existing designers and small businesses within the local Melbourne community who are remaking textiles through collaborations, a topic which I am currently exploring in my PhD, and through my podcast ‘Seam Change’. The focus on local actions which collectively make change intersects with the RMIT PlaceLab approach to hyper-local research, and I see a shared approach in critically examining how research can connect with those who can apply it in practice.

Georgia: My research is focused on fashion and sustainability through the lens of design. One area of exploration has been in the role of repair within fashion design. Repair is interesting both creatively and politically and it engages people in fashion in a way that sits outside a commercial interaction. So, repair provides an excellent community model for engaging with fashion practice. I also research and teach methods for designing with waste or second-hand materials and in this capacity, I was able to involve my student group in the subject ‘Fashion Design Reuse’ through their participation in a ‘Wear and Care’ aligned exhibition.

Why do you think a Research Project like ‘Wear & Care’ is significant for Brunswick in particular?

Julia: Brunswick has a thriving creative community which the ‘Wear & Care’ Research Project has helped to build connection between the RMIT Fashion & Textiles staff and students and key local actors.

Georgia: Brunswick has a dynamic ecosystem of second-hand clothing retail, there are many charitable op shops, large clothing resale stores like ‘Savers’, and consignment resale stores. There are also community sewing groups, repair cafes, tool libraries. These all combine to form a really fascinating ecosystem that enables people to have meaningful and sustainable relationships with their clothes and with fashion expression and the possibilities for this system should be better understood and amplified.

Tell us a little more about the activity you undertook in collaboration with ‘Wear & Care’ and RMIT PlaceLab?

Julia: I am part of the RMIT Repair Cafe, and I was involved in running the repair workshops held at PlaceLab Brunswick. You may have also noticed the blue and white illustrations which decorated the PlaceLab windows around May, that was also part of my contribution.

Georgia: We presented a series of six community repair workshops or “repair cafes”. This model involves volunteers teaching and helping the public to mend household items. Our events were clothing focussed, and each had a specific theme (eg, denim, alterations, knitwear), which not only helped on a practical level in terms of being able to provide the right materials on the day, but also allowed for community experts to share specific knowledge on topics ranging from knitwear darning to t-shirt customisation.

Running the Workshops gave us insights into the community repair movement specific to fashion. The repairs completed at the workshops were also documented to create a databank of garment repairs that is informing our research into garment longevity.

My students in ‘Fashion Design Reuse’ showed their work in an exhibition within PlaceLab Brunswick. They also contributed alongside the teaching team with interviews about their design process for working with secondhand garments (many of which were sourced from local secondhand sellers). The Exhibition demonstrated how the learning and teaching happening in RMIT’s School of Fashion and Textiles responds to contemporary concerns about clothing production and consumption and was a wonderful opportunity for students to have their work and reflections presented so beautifully to the public.

How are you contributing to the themes and areas being explored?

Ways to engage in fashion as a cultural and expressive force beyond the expected processes of shopping for new clothes is key to the PlaceLab ‘Wear and Care’ Research Project and our focus on mending as a community and creative pursuit is a tangible demonstration of one way that this can be achieved. Hopefully we not only showed that mending is already a popular (fashionable!) activity, we enticed more people to get involved!

Note from the researchers: Closet Clinic is a wonderful ongoing column in The Guardian by Lucianne Tonti that explores all manner of dimensions of garment care.

Items photographed as part of the research data collection for the Repair Cafe at RMIT team during the ‘Wear & Care’ Community Repair Series. Photos by Julia English.

‘Wear & Care’ Research Surveys

Our PlaceLab Brunswick team conducted two research surveys as part of the ‘Wear & Care’ Research Project engaging the community and Brunswick-based second-hand clothing retailers.

Community Research Survey

People from across our Brunswick and wider Melbourne community participated in helping us explore local clothing practices, and how these actions intersect with “rewilding” or “taming” concepts in fashion. The Survey was designed to generate quantitative results, with particular responses leading to questions requiring a qualitative response in order to elicit deeper insights from respondents. The online Survey engaged 482 people and was completed in full by 421 people, with 35% (149) of respondents living in Brunswick. Given the topic of inquiry and patterns within social research, 80% of respondents identified as female. Additionally, the survey was principally promoted via Instagram, which means that most respondents fell within the age group of 18-29 years.

This demographic information was interesting for two key reasons:

Firstly, it supports an emerging theme across the ‘Wear & Care’ Research Project of the emphasis on ‘women’s work’ and recognition that so much of the weight of driving individual and community action towards more sustainable clothing practices is carried by women, too often in the form of unpaid labour through making, mending or teaching skills. Secondly, it reflects a wider movement towards sustainable change within a younger cohort of people.

Expanding on this recurring theme throughout the Research Project to acknowledge that the work of sustainable fashion change is mostly the work of women, we observed conversations on the social movement around gender that is shifting and resisting the tendencies of the past to focus learning opportunities for mending and making by gender. Emerging attitudes to gender mean that young people are less constrained by gender norms.

What makes up the clothing in your wardrobe?

We asked Survey participants what makes up the clothing in their wardrobes. Interestingly, the ‘second-hand clothing’ and the ‘new clothing’ percentages were very similar. This reflects an embrace of second-hand clothing as part of people’s everyday wardrobes. Although it may indicate engagement with practices that lean towards the concept of “taming” excesses of the fashion system, it shows that people are connecting with more sustainable, community-accessible practices in their wardrobes. Those who indicated having second-hand clothing in their wardrobes were also asked where their second-hand clothing was from. The highest response was charities or not-for-profit organisations.

‘What makes up the clothing in your wardrobe?’ Flourish Data Visualisation.

Where do you donate or recycle your unwanted, worn or damaged clothes?

We first asked Survey participants what they do with their unwanted, worn or damaged clothes they want to remove from their wardrobe. The highest response indicated ‘donate or recycle’. When asked where they donate or recycle their unwanted, worn or damaged clothes, we found that most of those garments end up with charity and not-for-profit organisations, which are experiencing the enormity of Australia’s textile waste. This is critical when we consider the scarcity of resources (time, people) to repair garments, even small mends like replacing a button, as communicated by Brunswick-based second-hand clothing retailers – more on this below!

‘Where do you donate or recycle your unwanted, worn or damaged clothes?’ Flourish Data Visualisation.

If Other, can you let us know?

Community members let us know about other places they donate, and recycle their unwanted, worn or damaged clothes.

 

Can you tell us about any other local fashion “rewilding” practices or activities that you know are occurring in Brunswick?

We discovered that an array of fashion “rewilding” and “taming” actions occur here in Brunswick. When we asked our Survey participants, the responses that were categorised as community infrastructure and initiatives around mending, repairing and repurposing, produced the highest results. This sheds light on the importance of these resources when engaging the community to grow and nurture repair and repurposing practices. Furthermore, we asked Survey participants, ‘how do you wear and care for the clothes in your wardrobe?’ The highest response, with 73% of responses, was ‘I mend and repair my own clothes’, while the second highest response at 49%, was ‘I alter my own clothes to fit me better’. This indicates a high interest and existing engagement in these practices amongst Survey respondents that could be further supported through community infrastructure and initiatives.

Brunswick-Based Second-Hand Clothing Retailer Survey

We reached out to 16 Brunswick-based retailers to participate in a survey of second-hand clothing retailers that call Brunswick home. Across charity, not-for-profit, consignment and for-profit second-hand clothing retailers, six retailer representatives participated in a survey delivered online using Qualtrics. Five other retailer representatives joined in conversations with our Brunswick team at their retail stores, forming anecdotal research, to help us learn about retail business practices around repair, alterations, or redesign of second-hand clothing in Brunswick.

Why you should learn to sew on a button and other simple mends!

We recognised the power of learning the simple skill of sewing on a button to create change at an accessible but impactful level. It’s a life skill, but it can also save a garment from landfill. Through our survey of Brunswick-based second-hand clothing retailers, we learnt that everyday garments donated to not-for-profit and charity stores with missing buttons are generally not repaired.

The stores don’t currently have the resources (time, people) and capacity to repair garments – even small mends like replacing a button. Therefore, most of these garments are discarded at the sorting phase, destined for landfill, before even making it into the store for sale.

This means that, if you take the time to replace a missing button on an otherwise wearable garment, it has a better chance at another life with a new wearer. If you don’t repair it before donating, the garment can sadly be sent straight to landfill. It’s a simple intervention with big impact.

We learnt what might foster the growth of repair, alteration, or redesign activities for second-hand clothing retailers!

Brunswick-based retailers recommended that having more volunteers in the team that are willing to mend and also, developing repair knowledge through education amongst staff and the community, would help foster these activities in their businesses.

 

A massive thank you to everyone who contributed to our community Survey and the 11 retail businesses and organisations that shared their insights with us through the Retailer Survey or in face-to-face conversations.

‘Wear & Care’ Community Forum

On Thursday 16th November, as part of our PlaceLab ‘Wear & Care’ Research Project, we held an interactive Community Forum, in The Hanger on RMIT’s Brunswick campus, home to the School of Fashion & Textiles, exploring local insights, ideas, and practices around fashion “rewilding” and “taming” in Brunswick and beyond.

Our PlaceLab Brunswick team brought together RMIT fashion & textiles academics with community, industry, and local government representatives to share knowledge, experiences and practices across garment mending, second-hand clothing sales, upcycling, re-manufacturing, re-design and much more.

Attendees and speakers at the ‘Wear & Care’ Community Forum.
Image: Vanessa Duque.

Attendees and speakers at the ‘Wear & Care’ Community Forum.
Image: Vanessa Duque.

We opened the Forum conversation by welcoming RMIT’s Professor Alice Payne, Dean of the School of Fashion & Textiles and key knowledge expert in environmental and social sustainability issues in this space, to set the scene. Alice shared an introduction to the Anthropocene, our current era in which human actions significantly impact our planet, and how this time is intertwined with concepts of “rewilding” and “taming”.

‘Taming and rewilding really comes from two narratives of how we can think about our relationships with our technologies and our relationship with the living world.’
– Professor Alice Payne

We then heard from a collection of local knowledge experts in conversation throughout the morning. This included our five key speakers: Jennifer Thorman (Studio Manager at Second Stitch), Miriam Borcherdt (PhD candidate at RMIT’s School of Fashion & Textiles), Cathy Allizi (a volunteer at the Multicultural Women’s Sewing Group), Kirsta Hawkins (founder and CEO of Mutual Muse) and Luke Phillips (owner of upcycling enterprise Into Carry).

Attendees and speakers at the ‘Wear & Care’ Community Forum at The Hanger, RMIT Brunswick campus. Images: Vanessa Duque and RMIT PlaceLab.

Our speakers and audience members shared a range of local practices that intersect with both narratives of “rewilding” and “taming” in fashion and joined in an engaging dialogue about the evolving local response to new and shifting systems of fashion. This conversation was wonderfully facilitated by RMIT’s Dr Harriette Richards, a lecturer in Fashion Enterprise and co-founder of the Critical Fashion Studies Podcast.

‘We’re very much thinking about the implications of the practices that we’re sharing today within research, and how research is also informing practices in the community.’
– Dr Harriette Richards

The event also featured a showcase of PhD candidate research work from RMIT’s School of Fashion & Textiles, that embodied some of the unique intersections with narratives of “rewilding” and “taming” in a fashion context. The showcase included work by the following researchers:

Julia English with an exploration of upcycling, repair and local reuse practices and collaborations between local businesses,

Miriam Borcherdt with an investigation into scalable circular design through re-manufacturing practices,

Alicja Kuzmycz with an examination into consumer behaviour to inform design strategies for increased wear,

Remie Cibis with an investigation into how garments are understood as images by visually editing fashion garments, and

Ritika Vohra with an exploration into the creative narratives and languages of perception and transcendence through textile-based creative practice.

Showcase of PhD candidate research from RMIT’s School of Fashion of Textiles at the ‘Wear & Care’ Community Forum. Images: Vanessa Duque and RMIT PlaceLab.

Attendees displayed a range of printed materials and repair kit provisions as part of a knowledge sharing collection compiled on the day. There was also an opportunity to vote on the final resource we create as part of our ‘Wear & Care’ Activation Kit, to be released in December, joining a collection of outputs and resources emerging out of the ‘Wear & Care’ Research Project.

Attendees voting on the final resource for our ‘Wear & Care’ Activation Kit. Image: RMIT PlaceLab.

A huge thank you to everyone who joined us for the Forum, it was a pleasure to have such a passionate group come together to share their insights, inspirations, and ideas.
Listen to the ‘Wear & Care’ Community Forum discussion at the link below and plan a visit to our RMIT PlaceLab Brunswick Cycle #2 Exhibition from Wed 6th December – Wed 20th December!

 

Research Methods: Garment-led, Group Conversations

Over August and September, the RMIT PlaceLab Brunswick team is presenting ‘A Garment’s Life: Conversation Series’ as part of the ‘Wear & Care’ Research Project, underpinned by a carefully considered choice of research method.

One of the key research aims with ‘Wear & Care’ is to gather locals to learn about their practices of mending, repairing and sharing clothing that supports a local community response towards a new fashion system. The research has a particular focus on activities embraced in the home or collaboratively in the community.

As the research considers the changing fashion landscape in Australia and shifting social values in Brunswick, it was critical to establish an environment where lived experiences could be shared naturally and honestly. Therefore, incorporating interviews in the ‘Wear & Care’ methodology was crucial.

RMIT PlaceLab Brunswick Researcher Hayley Thompson facilitating ‘A Garment’s Life: Conversation Series’. Photo: RMIT PlaceLab.

‘Asking people questions about their lives, opinions, and experiences, and allowing them freedom of expression in telling their stories, is a powerful method of understanding people’s life worlds’ (Brinkmann 2013:149).

  1. Brinkmann S (2013) 'Conversations as research: philosophies of the interview', Counterpoints, 354:149.

With an underlying clothing and fashion-specific focus to the Research Project, ‘Wear & Care’ researcher Hayley referred to existing community projects and research methods for exploring wardrobes, from ‘Worn Stories‘ and ‘On Mending: Stories of damage and repair’ to ‘Craft of Use’ and ‘Local Wisdom‘.

The project and book ‘Craft of Use’ by Kate Fletcher was particularly influential to the method shaped for the Conversation Series. The ‘Craft of Use’ method is a ‘face-to-face interview about how a garment is used and portrait photography of the participant in the piece’ (Fletcher 2017:53). Furthermore, garment-led interview methods included in the book ‘Opening up the Wardrobe: A Methods Book‘, such as those developed by designer and researcher Amy Twigger Holroyd (2017) , also informed the methodology.

  1. Twigger Holroyd A (2017) 'Method 15. most and least favourite knitwear: Twigger Holroyd, 'garment-led interviews', in Fletcher K and Klepp IG (eds) Opening up the wardrobe: a methods book, Novus Press, Oslo.

Fletcher’s (2017:54) method ‘asks about specific actions and skills in the wardrobe (around the use of garments) — and utilises clothes as a ‘way in’ to talking about these practices that often go unnoticed’.

  1. Fletcher K (2017) 'Method 13. practices of garment use: Fletcher, 'craft of use', in Fletcher K and Klepp IG (eds) Opening up the wardrobe: A methods book, Novus Press.

Beyond a clothing and fashion lens, methods developed by artist-researcher Jody Haines, were also explored as Jody joins ‘A Garment’s Life: Conversation Series’ as a collaborator and series photographer. The methodology Jody explored in her own practice-led PhD research emerges from what she has ‘coined as an Indigenous feminist (new) materialism’ and engages practices of yarning and collaborative portraiture (Haines 2022:44). You can read more about Jody’s practice and Artist-Researcher Residency during PlaceLab Brunswick’s Cycle 01 Research Project ‘Creatives, Communities & Economies’ here.

  1. Haines J (2022) 'A cuppa and a yarn: Exploring methodology', Social Alternatives, 41(2):44-59.

A Community Collaborator at ‘A Garment’s Life: Conversation Series’. Photo: Jody Haines.

A Community Collaborator at ‘A Garment’s Life: Conversation Series’. Photo: Jody Haines.

The methods investigated ranged from garment-led interviews, face-to-face interviews and group interviews to collaborative portraiture and garment documentation photography. These all helped to shape the approach and experience the team aims to create in the Conversation Series.

From this, the ‘Wear & Care’ team chose a semi-structured, face-to-face, small group conversation approach to interviewing with photo documentation and portraiture elements. Over six sessions, with a maximum of five community collaborators participating in each, three components are central to the approach and intertwine over 90 minutes: storytelling, group conversation and photography.

Locals who registered to a session are asked to bring along a garment from their wardrobe that has been mended, repaired or shared. Photo: Jody Haines.

Locals who registered to a session are asked to bring along a garment from their wardrobe that has been mended, repaired or shared (or perhaps a special garment with a story behind it).

They join in a garment-led conversation with a small group of community collaborators, alongside researchers Hayley and Louise as facilitators. While pre-set questions are used as prompts, there is ample space for community collaborators to share their reflections, opinions, or related experiences around clothing, fashion, and sustainability with the group.

As early insights begin to emerge from the first four sessions conducted so far, the method is not only allowing meaningful conversations around daily practices of wearing, repairing and laundering to emerge, but also reflects the deep and complex interconnections surrounding fashion and sustainability with topics including gender, societal values, language and authorship.

The Brunswick team are looking forward to sharing more from ‘A Garment’s Life’ as they wrap up the Conversation Series with two final sessions this week. Stay tuned!

Garment story sharing at ‘A Garment’s Life: Conversation Series’. Photos: Jody Haines.

  1. Brinkmann S (2013) 'Conversations as research: philosophies of the interview', Counterpoints, 354:149.
  2. Twigger Holroyd A (2017) 'Method 15. most and least favourite knitwear: Twigger Holroyd, 'garment-led interviews', in Fletcher K and Klepp IG (eds) Opening up the wardrobe: a methods book, Novus Press, Oslo.
  3. Fletcher K (2017) 'Method 13. practices of garment use: Fletcher, 'craft of use', in Fletcher K and Klepp IG (eds) Opening up the wardrobe: A methods book, Novus Press.
  4. Haines J (2022) 'A cuppa and a yarn: Exploring methodology', Social Alternatives, 41(2):44-59.

Student Second-hand Clothing Redesign Display

From 3rd to 26th July 2023, our Brunswick Research Studio was home to a Student Second-hand Clothing Redesign Display, exploring concepts of reuse and redesign through a showcase of redesigned second-hand clothing pieces.

Our PlaceLab Brunswick team collaborated with RMIT’s School of Fashion & Textiles to feature a selection of garments redesigned and produced by students undertaking the course Fashion Design Reuse, led by Course Coordinator Dr Georgia McCorkill.

Redesigned second-hand garments.

Redesigned second-hand clothing pieces by RMIT School of Fashion & Textiles students.
Image: RMIT PlaceLab.

Student designers were challenged to select and redesign two used garments or textile items, with opposing characteristics or design concepts, to create one harmonious redesigned garment, or an entire outfit.

With a focus on clothing remanufacture in fashion production, the redesigned garments demonstrated sustainable design techniques through experimental design practice, challenging common understandings of the fashion design process.

Drawing inspiration from deconstructionist techniques and avant-garde aesthetics, the students were encouraged to experiment and apply their own creative process to redesign their existing items into something ‘new’.

Redesigned second-hand clothing pieces by RMIT School of Fashion & Textiles students.
Redesigned second-hand clothing pieces by RMIT School of Fashion & Textiles student.
Redesigned second-hand clothing pieces by RMIT School of Fashion & Textiles students.
Redesigned second-hand clothing pieces by RMIT School of Fashion & Textiles student.
Redesigned second-hand clothing pieces by RMIT School of Fashion & Textiles student.
Redesigned second-hand clothing pieces by RMIT School of Fashion & Textiles students.
Redesigned second-hand clothing pieces by RMIT School of Fashion & Textiles students.

Redesigned second-hand clothing pieces by RMIT School of Fashion & Textiles students.
Image: RMIT PlaceLab.

Alongside the redesigned second-hand clothing pieces, the exhibition also featured a digital display of video interviews communicating the redesign journeys with RMIT student exhibitors, Dr Georgia McCorkill and RMIT Tutors Courtney Holm and Ashley Martiniello. The interviews explored the student design brief, the process of redesigning existing garments and the challenges the students experienced along the way.

If you weren’t able to visit our Brunswick Research Studio for the exhibition, watch the student design journey interviews below!

A huge thank you to all who collaborated on, supported, and visited the Student Second-hand Clothing Redesign Display over the past month!
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The Display was presented by RMIT PlaceLab Brunswick in collaboration with RMIT’s School of Fashion & Textiles through the Bachelor of Fashion (Design) course Fashion Design Reuse.

RMIT PlaceLab Researchers:

Hayley Thompson, Nhu Bui & Louise Godwin

RMIT PlaceLab Communications Assistant:

Dani Francisco

RMIT Course Coordinator:

Dr Georgia McCorkill

RMIT Tutors:

Courtney Holm & Ashley Martiniello

Student Exhibitors:

Olena Merrin, Ineska Harrison, Gina-Karlotta Magdaluyo, Zhen Chen, Sai Fan (Mario) Cheng, Dan Zhu, Muhammad Danish Bin Saiful Rizal (Danish), Madellyn Lie, Lavanya (Lav) Rawat, Stephanie Rahardja, Laura Kimie Tomanari Ignacio, Maria Alejandra Romero Fernandez, Laura Scurrah, Rebecca Lee & Lutao (Jill) Ban.

Our first workshop in the ‘Wear & Care’ Community Repair Series at our Brunswick Research Studio. Image: RMIT PlaceLab.

‘Wear & Care’ Community Repair Series

Our ‘Wear & Care’ Research Project launched with a collaboration between RMIT PlaceLab Brunswick and Repair Cafe at RMIT from the School of Fashion & Textiles to deliver the ‘Wear & Care’ Community Repair Series. On May 2nd 2023, our Brunswick team kicked off with the first session in the six-part series of pop-up community repair sessions held weekly across May and June at our Brunswick Research Studio.

Week 1 of the Series commenced with a broad clothing repair session, as part of the RMIT Sustainability Week program, bringing together the local community with RMIT researchers, staff and students to build their skills with guidance from RMIT repairers and local mending experts. From Week 2, each workshop in the Series focused on a different aspect of clothes mending, alterations and embellishment. Participating menders were welcome to attend any or all of the sessions to learn about rips and holes, fastenings and alterations, darning and knitwear, denim repair and altering your T-shirts. Attendees also had the opportunity to participate in a research survey and have their completed repairs photo documented, contributing to research into garment longevity and durability by the Repair Cafe at RMIT team – Georgia McCorkill, Rebecca Van Amber and Julia English.

A huge thank you to all who attended, guided and repaired with us across the workshops, with special mentions to Tamara Russell and Sang Thai, who facilitated Weeks 4 and 6 workshops respectively, and Dr. Saniyat Islam, Alicja Kuzmycz, Deborah Wills-Ives, Carey Walden and Jessie McClure.

We’ve gathered a collection of photographs captured across the ‘Wear & Care’ Community Repair Series below. Enjoy!

 

Menders and expert repairers during the Week 1 workshop for our ‘Wear & Care’ Community Repair Series. Images: RMIT PlaceLab.

Dress mending during the Week 1 workshop for our ‘Wear & Care’ Community Repair Series. Images: RMIT PlaceLab.

Menders and expert repairers during the Week 2 workshop ‘Rips and Holes’ for our ‘Wear & Care’ Community Repair Series. Images: RMIT PlaceLab.

Our Week 3 workshop ‘Fastenings and Alterations’ as part of our ‘Wear & Care’ Community Repair Series. Image: RMIT PlaceLab.

Menders and repair experts at our Week 3 workshop ‘Fastenings and Alterations’ during the ‘Wear & Care’ Community Repair Series. Image: RMIT PlaceLab.

Local repair expert and textile artist, Tamara Russell, facilitating the Week 4 workshop ‘Darning and Knitwear’ as part of the ‘Wear & Care’ Community Repair Series. Image: RMIT PlaceLab.

Our Week 4 workshop ‘Darning and Knitwear’ as part of the ‘Wear & Care’ Community Repair Series. Image: RMIT PlaceLab.

Menders practicing Sashiko during our Week 5 workshop ‘Denim Repair’ as part of the ‘Wear & Care’ Community Repair Series. Image: RMIT PlaceLab.

RMIT School of Fashion and Textiles lecturer, Sang Thai, facilitating the Week 6 workshop ‘Alter Your Tee’ as part of the ‘Wear & Care’ Community Repair Series. Image: RMIT PlaceLab.

Wear & Care’s Research Survey is now open!
We’d love to hear how you wear and care for your clothing.

RMIT PlaceLab’s ‘Wear & Care’ Research Project is an exploration into methods of fashion “rewilding” in Brunswick.

Gathering locals, retailers, and researchers to learn about and encourage practices that mend, repair and share clothing to build a local response towards a new fashion system.

“Rewilding” fashion describes actions that support new cultures in how we better use, make and recreate clothing, and also, how we experience fashion outside of the commercial industry.
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This survey should take around 5-10 minutes to complete. Questions will focus on different aspects of “rewilding” fashion, plus demographic questions. All responses are anonymous by default, your participation is voluntary, and you can opt out at any time.

As part of the survey you can opt in to receive information about participating in further Wear & Care research activities. If you opt in, your email address will be linked to your survey responses in order to help us to find the right people to participate.

At the end of the survey, you will have the chance to go in the draw for 1 of 10 $100 gift cards.

Click the link ‘Get Involved’ to enter!

Person holding piece of thread.

‘Wear & Care’ is an exploration into methods of fashion “rewilding” in Brunswick. Gathering locals, retailers, and researchers to learn about and encourage practices that mend, repair and share clothing to build a local response towards a new fashion system.

The project considers Brunswick’s future as a creative fashion district by exploring methods of fashion “rewilding” accessible to the community.

The changing fashion landscape depends on shifting values and approaches to transform how we produce and consume to new positive ways of experiencing fashion that aligns people and planet.

Local fashion “rewilding” supports new cultures in how we better use, make and recreate clothing.

The project will include local workshops, community discussions, surveys and exhibitions supporting existing sustainable fashion practices in Brunswick, alongside shareable resources and fashion forums with RMIT School of Fashion & Textiles exploring emerging research.

We’d love you to be part of it. Follow us here & stay tuned.

RMIT School of Fashion & Textiles.
Image: RMIT University.

What Is: Fashion ‘Rewilding’?

Fashion “rewilding” describes actions that support new cultures in how we better use, make and recreate clothing that can expand beyond the boundaries of the dominant Western fashion system.

Within this current system, the most prominent way we experience fashion is through a lens of commercialisation and industry demands.

Rewilding in a fashion context endeavours to release fashion from the grip of fashion industry codes of constant change, newness, and profit motives, to build more diverse, inclusive and community accessible experiences of fashion.

‘Rewilding actions, then, are those that make wild spaces for fashion to flourish beyond the dictates of the fashion industry’, states Professor Alice Payne (2019:14), Dean of the School of Fashion & Textiles at RMIT University

  1. Fashion Futuring in the Anthropocene: Sustainable Fashion as Taming and Rewilding
On a broad scale, Payne (2020:159) explains, ‘rewilding fashion may mean producing far less clothing, shifting to regenerative agriculture methods, relocalising supply chains, as well as activism’.
  1. Designing Fashion's Future: Present Practice and Tactics for Sustainable Change

RMIT PlaceLab ‘Wear & Care’ Community Repair Series.
Image: RMIT PlaceLab.

On a human level, it creates space for more people to experience fashion as cultural expression and a creative practice of making, wearing and caring in new and different ways, not confined only to the experience as ‘consumer’.

We see communities of makers, menders, sharers, viewers, wearers and carers of clothing building humble practices of fashion rewilding in our neighbourhood of Brunswick, and we want to find out more!

Dye Garden at RMIT Brunswick Campus during RMIT Sustainability Week 2022. Image: RMIT University.

  1. Fashion Futuring in the Anthropocene: Sustainable Fashion as Taming and Rewilding
  2. Designing Fashion's Future: Present Practice and Tactics for Sustainable Change

RMIT PlaceLab acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the Eastern Kulin Nations on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University.

RMIT PlaceLab respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present, as the original and continuing Makers of Place.

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