World 9, Exploration A

Collage of punk clippings on a DIY clothing zine.

‘Punk Life’ DIY clothing zine (published in February 2021)

In World 9, learning to sew is a teenage rite of passage. They have a strong attitude which came from the 1960s youth culture and the punk attitude of 1970s, sewing you own clothes became the pinnacle of cool. Making your own clothes is a way of showing your individual identity and independence. They all learn to use sewing machines, it is as common and gender neutral as learning to drive. Making your clothes is also about repair and mending them when they rip or break, this is part of the individuality and the style of the garment. Different mending techniques including patchwork, sashiko, quilting, layering, safety pins and distressing. Re-using second-hand materials is important, making the garment sustainable and retro.

They hold annual conventions during which they award winners of various creative and technical categories with support to publish their DIY clothing zines, such as this one.

This Exploration was contributed by Yasmine Bushnell, Kaylie Burrows and Kitty Scott Barber (located in the UK), developed from a World contributed by Sally Cooke, 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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