Heard about the Material Mindfulness challenge and want to try it out for yourself?
Great! Follow this guide to have a go.
You’ll be enacting a fictional fashion world in which people have a deep and spiritual connection with their textiles.
You’re invited to take a close-up photo of your clothes every day for two weeks, in response to a daily one-word prompt.
You can do this Enactment individually or as part of a group. If you like, you can share your photos on Instagram or another platform.
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
- Camera
- Account on Instagram or other platform if you’d like to connect with others taking part
- If you are running the challenge as a group activity, you might like to use the prompt images (available to download as single images, gifs and mp4s)
On day 1, 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.
Share your photo. If you’re posting on Instagram, include 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.
If you are taking part as a group, take time to look at and comment on others’ responses.
Repeat every day for 14 days, using the list of prompts provided further down the page.
On day 15, 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?
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
Have you had a go at enacting World 45? We’d love to hear how it went! Send an email to Amy with your news.
Related Enactment reports
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!