3 minute read
REPURPOSING DECORATIVE CRAFTS
REVIVE YOUR STYLE
Tapestry has been at the heart of decorative crafts for centuries. Traditionally used to add comfort and personalise interiors, there’s a recent trend where it's repurposed to individualise mass-produced fashion.
Stitching has been used for thousands of years to make and repair clothes, but embroidery and tapestry has a rich history as a decorative art. It’s easy to consider it a frivolous pastime but in fact it has also been used as a tool for activism.
In the early 19th century, the Arts and Crafts Movement emerged in protest against the dehumanising effect of the Industrial Revolution where ‘men were being replaced by machines’.
Considered the father of the movement, William Morris founded a business in 1861 that produced high-quality, handmade furniture, textiles, books, and wallpapers. The fabrics and wallpapers are still sold today.
The movement offered a counter culture, allowing people to choose to shrug off the machine-driven age and seek comfort in more natural, crafted interiors.
Compare this to the culture shift that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. Crafting and DIY boomed because it gave comfort and certainty during a time of unprecedented lockdowns.
The pandemic also affected high-end fashion, with brands like Oscar de la Renta, Alexis Mabille, JW Anderson and Paco Rabanne exploring tapestry and upholstery in their collections.
Like Morris, Gen Z are adopting craft as an act of defiance, not to the Industrial Revolution, but to fast fashion. To them, upcycling decorative crafts like doilies and tapestry or using embroidery to visibly-mend are not just acts of sustainability.
As embroidery and visible-mending expert Tessa Solomons explains, when you choose to upcycle or repair your clothes, you make a statement.
"You're stepping outside consumer culture, and identifying yourself as somebody with a relationship with their clothes and that you're prepared to invest in that ongoing relationship. And it's fun to take something that was mass produced and bring your own personality to that".
Indie fashion labels like Purple Hill and Frankie demonstrate this rejection of fast fashion hyper-consumerism.
Purple Hill founder, 21 year old Harry Gamlin says:
“I think people don’t care about it [craftsmanship] anymore, I think that’s what’s fuelled it. People care so much about how things look and wearing it for an Instagram photo or a single night out, that they don’t care if it’s going to last a week I think that’s what craftsmanship is about, it’s not only the details that go into making something, it's about the quality and the way it's made.”
