Samantha Donovan: Well how often do you donate clothes to an op shop or just simply throw them away? It’s estimated Australians send more than 200,000 tons of clothing to landfill each year and the fast fashion trend is largely to blame. But an artist’s collective is trying to get us to rethink our habits by getting hands on with fashion waste. Isabel Moussalli prepared this report.
Isabel Moussalli: It’s a rock star welcome as models and fashion designers strut down the runway in a grungy Perth warehouse. For many it’s their first time in the spotlight. But they’re not here to influence what you buy. Instead they’re creating something new using clothing destined for landfill. Adding to that challenge they only have an hour.
Opinion: High-vis florescent sleeves that I cut into strips. So I knotted them so they looked almost like a ruffle, like an Edwardian sort of ruffle.
Opinion: I sourced through the dumpsters this beautiful orange crochet piece and then I got discarded knitwear. And this is the creation. It has a low back halter neck and I think it’s really pretty.
Isabel Moussalli: The top, is it a doily?
Opinion: The top is a vintage doily that I found in the bins and I just thought it would make a perfect centrepiece for a halter.
Isabel Moussalli: So who’s behind the organised chaos?
Teneille Clerke: My name is Tenille and I am one of the four members of Melbourne Art Collective Fast Fashun. We create installations, performances and workshops that engage people in climate action using fashion and clothing waste.
Isabel Moussalli: Tenille Clerk used to be a photographer for a large fashion brand but became disenchanted with the industry. Now she’s a writer, a theatre maker and…
Teneille Clerke: Silly person. A professional larrikin actually is the technical term for what I do.
Isabel Moussalli: But there’s a pretty serious side too.
Teneille Clerke: In Australia alone 200,000 tonnes of clothing waste goes into our landfills every year. On average each Australian buys 56 new items a year.
Isabel Moussalli: The collective runs free events like this at arts festivals across the country. And this week in Perth hundreds of people are taking part. There’s one tonne of clothes to work with, sourced from a local op shop, deemed too damaged or low quality to resell.
Teneille Clerke: So what we’re trying to do is bridge a gap between the intangible and the tangible. And I guess inviting people to come and play and be silly creates a space where there’s curiosity and there’s no pressure. It’s for sharing skills and sharing knowledge and just coming to understand that we’re not alone when it comes to tackling issues such as climate action.
Isabel Moussalli: Members of the public create their looks with scissors, safety pins, hand sewing or borrowing a sewing machine. And they run mending workshops. Sebastian Berto is another artist behind the event who’s encouraging people to consider their own sense of fashion.
Sebastian Berto: Engaging in creativity allows you to imbue things that don’t necessarily have value into something that does have value. And I think that’s a really interesting space to be in when we’re talking about fashion waste that there’s so much of. And a lot of people throw it out because they don’t feel like it has any value anymore because of very quickly changing trends in the fashion world.
Isabel Moussalli: Sebastian Berto says more Australians should learn to repair their clothes or find a local tailor. As for Tennille Clerk…
Teneille Clerke: Governments need to step in and put limits on the amount of fast fashion that’s being imported. But if individuals want to take more responsibility it would be just consuming less. It would be wearing things to death. It would be end trends, don’t follow trends anymore. Repairing things, borrowing things, buying second hand, buying things that are high quality so they last a long time.
Isabel Moussalli: 17 year old Tayrona says this event has inspired her to dig out her sewing machine when she gets back home.
Tayrona: I’m making a tube top. The top part was like some granny undies. And then I just cut it to have that top part. And then the bottom part was like just a basic singlet that I then sewed onto.
Isabel Moussalli: Very lacy granny undies.
Tayrona: Yes.
Isabel Moussalli: Do you reckon it’s something that you’ll wear at home, you’ll take home?
Tayrona: Yeah, I think if I go out sometime I could wear it with like some jeans or something.
Samantha Donovan: That’s fashion workshop participant Tayrona, Isabel Moussalli reporting from Perth.