One of the groups at the pilot Fashion Fictions workshop in February 2020 created an exhibition of items dating back to the time of the ban on buying and selling clothing in World 1. Here is a selection of items from their exhibition.
Protest jacket, signs, and badges
Artefacts from protestors supporting and opposed to the clothing-sales ban and the De-Dress movement (a.k.a the Decommodify Dress campaign) illustrate some of the public debates that surrounded the ban and the strength of feeling on both sides.
There is irony in the ambiguity of some of these signs. The slogan, ‘sewing is slavery’, for example, was used by anti-ban campaigners who resisted home dressmaking. The same slogan was employed by pro-ban groups protesting against sweatshop conditions in garment factories.
Protest garment made from branded suit bag
Purchased garments were transported in branded bags, which were often discarded after one use, contributing to landfill. This garment bag was appropriated by a De-Dress protestor to highlight this conspicuous waste.
This Stage 2 Exploration was contributed by Kerry Gibson, Barbara Brownie and Allison Leach (located in the UK and USA), developed from a World contributed by Amy Twigger Holroyd, using a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence which allows others to share and adapt the work in any medium and for any purpose, providing that they credit the authors and share their material using the same Creative Commons licence.
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