Want to join the Material Mindfulness challenge?
Great! Follow this guide to join in.
You’ll be enacting a fictional fashion world in which people have a deep and spiritual connection with their textiles.
You’re invited to share a close-up of your clothes on Instagram every day for two weeks, in response to a daily one-word prompt, from 12 – 26 January 2023. (If you don’t use Instagram, you can take part privately or post on another platform.)
Why? Because engaging thoughtfully with what we already own is a powerful and accessible way of challenging the consumerist fashion system.
The fiction guiding your Enactment:
In World 45, people have a deep and spiritual connection with their textiles, and take time to listen to their clothes every day.
This deepens their appreciation for their wardrobes and the ways their garments are entangled in complex social, cultural and ecological networks.
They acquire little, think a lot, and take care of what they have.
What you need
You don’t need much for this Enactment!
- Use the clothes already in your wardrobe
- Smartphone with camera
- Instagram account if you’d like to connect with others taking part
To receive email reminders about the project, including the daily prompts, complete the quick sign-up form.
We’ll let you know when we’re getting started in January!
On day 1 (12 January), check the first prompt: Blue. Photograph a close-up of an item in your wardrobe in response to the prompt.
Wear the item for the rest of the day (if you can – if you wear a uniform, you can skip this part!).
Try to maintain a sense of intimacy and connection.
Post your photo on Instagram including the prompt and hashtags #MaterialMindfulness #Fashion Fictions.
If you wish, include a comment on how looking closely might help us to care deeply – about our clothes, about fashion, about the earth.
Search the #MaterialMindfulness hashtag on Instagram to see others’ responses. Like, comment and share to amplify the message and spread the idea of #MaterialMindfulness
Repeat every day for 14 days.
Prompts will be posted on Instagram by @AmyTwiggerH, sent out by email, and posted on this page.
On day 15 (26 January), the prompt is zoom out. After this experience of looking closely, do you see your wardrobe, or the wider fashion system, in a new light?
Join our friendly and informal online reflection session on Thursday 26 January, 7-8pm GMT.
We’ll be reflecting on the experience of looking closely at our clothes and consider what we might be inspired to do next, in terms of both real-world action and further Fashion Fictions activities.
Daily prompts
- Day 1: Blue
- Day 2: Pocket
- Day 3: Fray
- Day 4: Stitch
- Day 5: Light
- Day 6: Zip
- Day 7: Loud
- Day 8: Hole
- Day 9: Inside
- Day 10: Texture
- Day 11: Button
- Day 12: Edge
- Day 13: Detail
- Day 14: Gather
- Day 15: Zoom out
Tell us about your Enactment
We’ll be following all of the posts shared on Instagram with great interest. If you take part but don’t want to post on Instagram, we’d love to hear how it went for you! Send an email to Amy with your news.
This Enactment was devised by Amy Twigger Holroyd, building on an Exploration created by Gautham Krishna, Rachael Matthews and a Fashion Fictions contributor, which was in turn 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.
Does this World remind you of something?
I am keen to hear about any historical or contemporary real-world examples – whether individual practices, subcultures or mainstream activities – that this fiction brings to mind.
Please share any such examples using this form. Thank you!