This Thursday, V&A Dundee will see fashion activists bringing a 20th Century solution to a 21st Century problem.
The museum is hosting Right To Repair, a free online event in collaboration with Fashion Revolution, which will encourage people to embrace the wartime mantra of “make do and mend”.
In this series of “lightning talks”, a panel of experts will explore how mending clothes can allow people to enjoy fashion in more sustainable ways.
In a time where fast fashion is exploiting people and the planet, how do we enjoy our wardrobes for longer?”
V&A Dundee
The panel will also look at how learning mending skills can help empower local communities in the fight against climate change.
V&A Dundee celebrates Scottish design in all its forms, but “fast fashion” is a rapidly worsening problem for the environment. For example, around 10,000 items of clothing are sent to landfill every five minutes in the UK.
So this event asks: “In a time where fast fashion is exploiting people and the planet, how do we enjoy our wardrobes for longer?”
Fashioning a new outlook
Fashion Revolution sees mending as the answer, so Right To Repair will feature talks from four founders of slow fashion and mending companies:
- Siobhan McKenna, of Rejean Denim, a Glasgow-based company which makes unisex denim jackets from 100% reclaimed materials.
- Rosalind Studd, of Repair What You Wear, which offers free, detailed clothes-mending tutorials online.
- Petra Baiba Olehno, of REPAIREL, which focuses on making footwear repair more accessible and affordable.
- Alis Le May and Callum McLennan from Decent Projects CIC, which promotes mending and shopping local through workshops and online resources.
Founded in 2013, Fashion Revolution is a global activist organisation. It aims to tackle worker exploitation and reduce the environmental impact of the fashion industry. The Right To Repair online event, hosted in collaboration with V&A Dundee, will take place Thursday April 22nd at 6pm.