Clothes Hacking for beginners! a free booklet to get you started

Hacking promotes agency, a deeper understanding of one's body, environmentally conscious practices, economically friendly alternatives, creativity, personalized clothing, and heightened self-confidence. You will also gain a personal connection to your clothes and have a greater appreciation for their life. - Grace

Today’s introduction to one simple hack made me feel so accomplished. Later, at the thrift store, I felt liberated without being tied to just one section of sizes. I can also feel myself beginning to look at clothing and MY clothes in an entirely new and exciting way. My newly found skills and interests will be instrumental in leading a more practical lifestyle, mentally, economically, environmentally… -Ainsley

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Clothes Hacking...is what exactly?

Garments are our most immediate shelters. As such, they should support our needs and preferences just as buildings do. While we are quick to remodel our homes with DIY spirit, we do not approach our clothes the same way. This booklet is a call to start looking at our garments differently. Basically, the term “clothing hack” suggests a way of thinking about clothes as venues for the study of self, society, and space. If we “hack” our clothes, we can question they ways that they are designed and intended for our bodies and further. We can question standards of sizing; definitions of comfort and fit; conceptions of beauty and body image; how capitalism fuels consumption in the unsustainable fast fashion industry; and more.

Clothes should conform to our needs and support humans based on our unique bodies, lifestyles, and styling preferences. We often consume apparel and accessories as if they are precious in their retail-sold forms, as if we cannot make an impression on them through personal alteration. We might assume our body is at fault rather than the garment. But often our clothes are at fault by not fitting, functioning, and flattering us in the ways we need and want. Clothing Hacks help us increase our agency in our apparel by giving us the skills and knowledge to remake our clothes so that they fit, flatter, support, and function the ways we want. Clothing has always been about self-expression. Clothing Hacks amplify that passive practice into a much more active one, infused with DIY spirit.

Ultimately, we think we should expect more from our clothes (how they fit and flatter us) and our clothes should expect more from us (how we work on them to sustain them). This booklet contains several hacks, each personally done by one hacker on a garment from their personal collection.

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About the Authors

Kirin Makker is Associate Professor at Hobart William Smith Colleges. Grace Hammett, Ethan Leon and Ainsley Rhodes are former students of Makker. Together, the four undertook the production of this booklet as part of a HWS Research Internship during summer 2019.

Insta: @HackYourClothes

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