Recrafting futures: Post-material transformations toward clothing longevity

Like most modern consumer products, clothing relies on a global supply of extractive and linear materials. This economic model leads to exponential growth in waste across every stage in the supply chain. As of 2018, the United States Environmental Protection Agency reported that over eleven million tons of textiles were sent to landfills. Aligned with their projections, these numbers continue to increase. The growing trend toward sustainable solutions is embedded in the existing capitalist paradigm of exponential economic growth on a finite planet. This "business as usual" approach is problematic as the depletion of resources is beyond the point of sustaining to the point of repair. My research is positioned as a radical alternative, focusing on individuals in domestic and community spaces, leveraging the power of craft as a reparative practice for clothing as a means of breaking away from capitalist notions of the future. 

Sustainable fashion research examines the complexities of social norms and attitudes, examines the vitality of craft, and suggests people engage more with their clothing to deepen their attachment and promote longevity. Amateurs, enthusiasts, and emerging designers are moving away from fast fashion in favor of small, local practices, demonstrating how social forces can have a significant impact. These communities of practice engage a broader population, lowering the barrier to entry and making it easier to pivot and adapt to changing circumstances. 

My research explores radical alternatives to fashion through slow, small, and local DIY mending and recrafting practices. Through prototyping and ethnographic experiential methods, this body of work sits between a personal and collective experience of recrafting clothing while extending a model to consider an ontology for sustained care and repair for clothing. 

Using Transition Design and design activism approaches, I seek to uncover equitable and sustainable pathways in the short term and long term by engaging with the clothing we already own. To disrupt the current system of taking, making, and wasting, this dissertation explores new ways of imagining plural futures for clothing systems through practices of craft and remaking.