Freedom Clothing Project

Last year, we went on an unusual diet. We decided that we would only eat what we could be sure had travelled less than 100 miles from field to fork for a month. It was hard work, but we discovered a lot about what is produced in our local area and the people that make it.

Whilst it is possible to live on a 100 mile food diet, it is amazingly difficult to survive without materials and products from all around the world. Take clothing for example. How do we make decisions about what to buy? Would we survive if there were not vast numbers of poor people making cheap clothing for us (fairtrade or otherwise)?

Take a moment to imagine a situation where there were no clothing imports. What would we wear?

Freedom Clothing Project is a fashion think-and-do tank and a non-profit co-operative. We have been wrestling with these questions to try to develop an alternative model of sustainability where people and the environment are respected.

So, what did you come up with in a no-importing future? What would we wear? Well, as a nation we have a history of producing clothing so part of the answer might be in home-grown fabrics, such as wool. [Note: for a recent BGI article about wool production, read here] We might also be able to develop other alternative fabrics from agricultural crops. I've seen some nice clothing made from nettles, for example.

These might well be part of the answer, but there is a more immediate and simpler solution. Each year we throw away 2 million tonnes of old clothing. That is a lot of clothing. Imagine if people had the skills to take old clothing from their wardrobe and turn it into something more interesting. Imagine if brands stopped looking at bringing more and more material from overseas which in turn produced more waste, but started seeing the waste mountain as a mountain of potential.

I know this sounds very 1920s and twee, but maybe we need to learn to make-do-and-mend. Maybe the next time we need more clothing we should keep looking in charity shops until we find what we need. Or maybe we need to crank open the sewing machines and learn how to turn the waste into something more interesting. Maybe we need more brands to relocate back to the UK, using local skilled labour to produce clothing nearby from waste materials. Then every time someone bought a new product they'd not be forcing someone to work in a sweatshop, not destroying the world with pesticides and not spending fuel to get it to us from a foreign country.

This has been the basis of our recent thinking. You can read more details on our website.

Next, action. It turns out that there are lots and lots and lots of resources out there on the internet teaching people how to make their own clothing. It is a growing movement in the USA; a massive army of people moved to Do It Themselves. But this hasn't really caught on in the UK so we decided to start a series of competitions to encourage people to think about how they could remake old clothing. The first competition - which we called the v-vamp - has just finished. We had some overstock (and therefore identical) v-neck t-shirts and told participants to make them into something more interesting as part of a range of clothing. People made them into dresses, skirts, bags, lots of tops, a clever necklace and even a cushion cover. The winner was Charlotte Brooks from Coventry who has produced a really exciting Flamenco inspired top. You can see all the entries here.

But that isn't enough. Where would you go to buy good quality clothing made from waste materials, we thought. There are quite a lot of craft fairs that operate around the country, but it is unusual to see much clothing. Wouldn't it be great, we thought, to set up a series of recycled clothing markets, similar to farmer's markets, where people could go to buy really good stuff directly from the producers. In fact, we thought it was such a good idea that we decided to do it ourselves. The first fair is going to be in Birmingham in an art gallery called the Custard Factory. We have got together with a bunch of other brands to put on the event on 21 February - so people will be able to buy high quality interesting fashion made in the UK from waste materials.

We are hoping these activities will encourage more people to consider making and buying remade fashion.

Get involved in the remade fashion revolution:

• Contact us to join the conversation about how we think about and then do sustainable fashion
• Go on a course from your local sewing machine shop, or a workshop run by the Make Lounge
• Find out about people in your community who make clothing
• Get inspired by the online resources and see what hidden skills you have
• Perhaps even consider selling your stuff online

Joe Turner

photos (c) Freedom Clothing Project 2009

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