Wandle Vs. The Wet Wipes, 2024

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Distraught and disgusted by the discovery that my beloved local river, the Wandle, was being routinely polluted by discharges of untreated sewage by Thames Water, I started crafting a response to this ongoing problem, based on my observations of the Wandle. 

Delicately marbled polyester satin pebbles in a rainbow of hues adorn the bodice of the outfit, suggesting the carefully constructed cocoon of the caddis fly larva. Water crowfoot, cut from polycotton and plastic garden netting, drapes from the hat and shoulder like nature’s very own feather boa. The skirt, a tangle of individually dyed and hemmed plastic “wet wipes” encroaches onto the carefully sculpted shape, distorting the silhouette and leaving a tide line of silt-covered bottle caps in its wake.

(Un)Natural is a work of wearable art made from 24 discarded fast fashion garments. These insubstantial, cheaply-made garments have been transformed into an abundance of natural forms.

(Un)Natural suggests a utopian vision of an alternative fashion system: one where unwanted clothes can be reimagined as fantastical couture. It acknowledges the garments’ previous lives and the workers who made them through the retention of key garment details and care labels. It envisions a system where all garment workers could be artisans, their creativity freed if their time and skills were valued. 

(Un)Natural also evokes a need for synergy with the natural world. Synthetic garments made from oil are worn for a day, and then dumped in landfill. A fashion industry that honoured nature by considering both the creation of a garment and its disposal could radically reduce its impact on people and planet.

During pandemic lockdown walks I collected lost clothing and textile waste from the Wandle Trail and other parks and green spaces along the River Wandle in South London. I created a series of quilts, presenting these forsaken scraps and garments as though they were something precious and worth preserving. I also found vintage fabrics fly-tipped in a nature reserve, and made clothing inspired by the wildlife I saw on my walks. 

I was really fascinated by the way our everyday usage of textiles affects the environment, and how we interact with both the environment and our clothes. Clothes have never been so cheap and plentiful, so does this mean we have lost our emotional attachment to them? Do they become just another piece of litter, a piece of single-use rubbish?

Fragments of our clothing end up polluting the environment at every part of a garment’s lifecycle, usually without our knowledge and beyond our control. These pieces reveal alarming facts that can only be altered by industry-wide change, but they also reveal the beauty and possibility of creative fabric re-use.

All our clothes say something about us, including the ones we throw away. As a costume maker and a vintage fashion fan, I’m passionate about clothes as a means of storytelling. Worn Out tells a story about my wardrobe, but it’s not the story of favourite clothes or treasured heirlooms. It’s the story of the hidden side of fashion; a story of fast fashion failures and the story of the life I’ve lived while wearing these ordinary clothes, and how they have come to the end of their useful life naturally. 

Worn Out is made from all the clothes my sister and I would have sent to textile recycling over a year or so. It illustrates the huge post-consumer textile waste problem that fast fashion has created, but also the potential for creativity if we were able to turn that waste into a useful resource. 

A new occasional series of experimental embroideries using single-use plastic packaging found in the environment to create an image of that environment.

 An occasional series where I respond to bad behaviour by big fashion brands by “improving” a piece of their clothing with a new logo or slogan.

An occasional series of wildlife embroideries on clothing.