Hacktivism strikes me as a great term to describe the art of hacking into reject and cast-off clothing that is no longer loved, at the same time as making a statement about waste and exploitation that arises from contemporary fashion consumption habits. (That was until I googled it and found it’s more readily aligned with computer hacking.)

Anyway, this method of upcycling reflects the #scavengerstyle fashion political statement made by upcycler Karen Ellis whose 24/7 practice is wearing garments salvaged from the point of landfill in Victoria, Australia for the past five years.

Karen brought my attention to Otto von Busch and his >self_passage< research project that ‘explores how fashion can be used for empowerment, self-development and personal growth instead of being a phenomenon of top-down decrees and collective anxiety’. 

Some years ago, New-York based Von Busch wrote beautifully about upcycling fashion here: “The design processes of upcycling can make us update the world of fashion in small and beautiful steps, upfashioning it with our own craftsmanship. We can use fashion as a workshop for collective enablement where a community shares their methods and experiences … by arranging collective workshops, we can liberate one part of fashion from a phenomenon of dictations and anxiety to instead become a collective experience of empowerment through engaged craft.”

Sharing upcycling ideas with the community is what I’ll be doing at a free workshop tomorrow at Redcliffe in Brisbane as part of What’s Cooking in the Gardens  in which we’ll be chopping into reject t-shirts and turning them into unique wearables. The organisers say this Textile Beat workshop is: “Upcycling at its best. Utilise your creativity through this purposeful and resourceful activity, learn to love your old clothes.” So if you’re near Redcliffe Botanic Gardens, I’ll be there between 9am and 3pm Sunday having fun with scissors and handstitch – and looking to co-create upcycles for Sew it Again during August.

Sew 214 is two t-shirts reworked. For the top, I cut out much of the armhole and bodice, leaving the neck rib intact then tied a knot to prevent sagging and create shape. For the skirt, I cut right across a larger printed t-shirt (from left sleeve to right and cutting just below the neck) and threaded elastic through the t-shirt hem so it becomes the waist. The remains of the sleeves create a mod, irregular hemline.