Boro Repair Society x Kind Materials Research Exhibition

Morgan, Laura; Heywood, Rosy

Abstract

What you wear ensures your survival, protects your modesty, reflects your character and identifies you with your tribe. Textiles are essential to humankind for these purposes; but we also need our textiles to support an environmentally regenerative and socially just future.

The negative impacts of the fashion and textiles industry, as one of the most polluting global industries is high cause for concern, especially in light of stark warnings of accelerated climate change from the recent IPCC report. The need for a new relationship with our clothes has become critical. So, what steps can we take to reduce the negative impacts of fashion?

This exhibition for Sustainable Fashion Week, presents two contrasting yet complimentary approaches to textile-led sustainable fashion, demonstrating that the solution can – and should – have many different tactics to create the much-needed systematic changes in the fashion system: from improving sustainability in the design and manufacture of garments to prolonging their life through creativity, care and repair.

The exhibition features recent work dubbed “Kind Materials Research” by a design research team at the Centre for Print Research, UWE. The team consists of Wallscourt Senior Research Fellow, Dr Laura Morgan and Research Associate, Rosy Heywood. As textile design researchers, they are fueled by a desire to disrupt the systemic problems with the way we design and use textiles that contribute to a linear model of growth in the global fashion economy. Seeking kinder material systems for textiles and fashion, their recent research investigates alternatives to chemical dyeing and finishing, integrating bio-based dyeing processes with digital technology.

Exhibiting alongside Rhyannan Hall of the Boro Repair Society. ‘Boro’ means tattered or repaired in Japanese, and we use the method of ‘sashiko’ to create it; however ‘Boro’ is an ongoing process and a relationship that you create with your clothes. We all have stories about our favourite clothes and ‘Boro’ adds another layer of history to these stories, giving our well-loved garments a new lease of life. Rhyannan says we need to adapt the Japanese tradition slightly in order to make it better suited to the textiles we use and the Western stye of pattern cutting. Here she will exhibit several of her Boro-inspired mending pieces and share the stories around these garments. She will be hosting a series of workshops alongside the exhibition.

The Exhibition is being held as part of Sustainable Fashion Week, the UK’s first fashion week of its kind. SFW’s focus will not be on next season’s trends but instead will be on up-skilling, inspiring and empowering the community. They want to generate action, from the ground up, that supports a change in our relationship with fashion. In September 2021 SFW will be curating a week of creative, community-led activity that celebrates the many ways we can begin new fashion habits that don’t harm people or planet.

• Exhibition Performance Type: Exhibition
• Start Date: Sep 13, 2021
• End Date: Sep 26, 2021
• Deposit Date: Sep 27, 2021
• Keywords: Sustainable Fashion; Textile Design; Circular economy; Bio Design
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/7854357