12. Making a-mend-s

~ The world is indeed full of ugly jumpers, but it is also full of wonderful, innovative, frightening and challenging knitted objects. ~ Joanne Turney 71

Making a-mend-s:

How is my work different from that of Celia’s or Bridget’s? Although I do follow the same school of thought - using repair as a medium of self-expression and also waste prevention - unlike darning which conceals the area under stress, I emphasise the flaw by giving it a border i.e. mending only the loops that have fallen, just enough to make the stitches robust and to show the characteristics of the defect. I give the defect a new dimension - each has its own individuality, its own uniqueness.

Earlier, garments were slashed intentionally to either depict class differences or in a show of rebellion against the natural order. It was clear people who made or wore such fabrics wanted to make a bold statement. Gaping slashes portrayed a kind of novel regularity that enraptured viewers via their shock value - these portrayed conservative skepticism, minority group misidentification, counterculture insult etc.. Although it is not the first time that aesthetics of imperfection intersect with ideas about fashionability, my approach to this notion and the means to represent it can be considered a new method.

Figure 11. Black hole: Staring bleakly back at you, London, 2019. Photography: Shipra Chandran.

The hole right in the centre of the swatch serves as an uncomfortable reminder of how accustomed to ‘finished’ products we are. The subsequent mending was done around the hole, as a part of my personal project. The needles on the fabric are latched onto the loose loops, so as to prevent them from coming undone.

Now defects are somewhat accepted but with a twist: they are required to be mended (over it) to cover the hole. The darned patches are also a fashion statement, but they are more focused on making people aware about sustainability. In this field, our creations should express a logical structure that clearly shows both the goal and the means used in their fabrication. 72 What I expect from the visualisation of mending is honesty in bringing out how fabric and in turn a dress, is made; I would like to expand this approach as much as possible.

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71 Joanne Turney, The Culture of Knitting (New York: Berg, 2009), p.221.