CRAFTING CLOTHING Slow fashion project gives local makers a challenge to create a locally sourced, sustainable outfit By Jane Kaufman
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or Margaret Sankey, the concept of designing and making a three-piece outfit over the course of a year from locally sourced materials – right down to the dyes – presented challenges she did not expect. Sankey was one of 23 people in the first cohort of “One Year, One Outfit,” a project of the Rust Belt Fibershed, culminating in an exhibit by the same name at Praxis Fiber Workshop in the Waterloo Arts District in Cleveland. “It’s kind of been this great marrying of my passions of fashion, clothes and plants and fiber and farming,” Sankey says. Artists, farmers and novices gathered in bi-monthly virtual sessions on Zoom to compare notes and share information about their challenges and tricks in designing their outfits literally from seed, roots, flowers, fiber and hides, sometimes from their own gardens and farms. The cohort worked solo or in small groups to complete the projects, starting in October 2020, with the goal to finish in time for the exhibit hanging at Praxis Fiber Workshop from Nov. 5, 2021 through Jan. 14, 2022. At first, Sankey, who lives on a small farm in Perry, thought
Janette Knowles of Columbus spun, dyed and hand-wove foraging bags for the outfit she created with Celeste MalvarStewart, also of Columbus. | Photo / Janette Knowles
10 | Canvas | Winter 2021
she would make linen pants from locally grown flax. When she tried working with flax, she decided to change her plan based on the time it took to spin and weave – settling on a dyed deerskin skirt sewn together with her own hand-spun flax, a hand-knit sweater and a leather necklace with a Grand River mussel as its pendant. “I had to keep kind of shifting to (do) what’s possible in this time frame,” she recalls. Sankey made her dyes from her own Hopi black dye sunflowers, dyer’s coreopsis, indigo, marigolds and with goldenrod she foraged. She agonized over the deer hide. “It took me so long to cut it because I was so afraid to make the first cut,” she says, adding that a friend recommended she sleep with the hide to gain an understanding for it and to align the spine of the hide with her own spine. The concept for “One Year, One Outfit” was the brainchild of Sarah Pottle – who with her twin sister Jessalyn Boeke co-founded the Rust Belt Fibershed – and Connie Fu, former gallery director of Praxis Fiber Workshop. The Rust Belt Fibershed, which is part of a network of fibersheds across the country, draws from a 250-mile radius outside of Cleveland and encompasses parts of Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and New York state. Its mission is “to build a community that collaboratively supports locally grown textiles in a way that decrease consumption of fast fashion and works to restore the soil,” according to its website. “We aspire to connect everyone in all parts of our local fiber system: farmers, fiber processors – from large mills to home spinners, weavers, dyers and fiber artists – to designers, shop owners, consumers and fiber enthusiasts. Through this project, we hope to foster friendship, creativity and a greater respect for our environment, as well as an understanding of the impact we share in our corner of the world.” SLOW FASHION Fast or extractive fashion – cheaply manufactured clothing – has a heavy impact on both the environment and people through the use of poorly paid workers, Pottle says. Although denim is made from cotton, it uses a synthetic dye that is toxic and pollutes not only the waterways where it is made but wherever it lands in a washing machine and fades, Pottle says, calling it “a pretty damaging industry.” In addition, synthetic fibers used in the garment industry can take centuries to decompose. The fibershed movement, as well as the concept of slow fashion, of which “One Year, One Outfit” is an example, is partly inspired as a response to the impact of the textiles industry. “And really, I think for me, it’s a lot more about the mentality of just consuming and then throwing away and consuming and throwing away,” Pottle says. “Slow fashion is the absolute opposite of that, where you’re thinking of the origin story of where your clothing comes from, and you’re taking care to create or to keep it well, and to keep it nicely. So
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