World 54, Enactment iii: report

This Enactment was adapted from the

World 54, Enactment i recipe

Large airy room, bundles of workshop materials on the floor, mixed group of participants on chairs around the walls waiting for the workshop.

An untidy bundle of trimmings to be used for fasteners: twine, ribbons and tape of different widths and colours, lace, buttons and press studs.

Collection of small brightly coloured plastic toys, pink sparkly mask, pink party hat, feathers to be used as accessories and adornments.

Young woman dressed in draped floor-length garment fashioned from a bedsheet, tied at the waist with blue ribbon, a veil on the back of her head.

Young man being dressed by another standing behind him using white sheets draped at the waist and entwined across his body and over shoulders, wearing a white turban-like head covering.

Back view of participant draped in a white sheet, blue scarf tied at the waist, another holding aloft an open spherical structure made from flexible yellow and orange straws and green connectors, perhaps a potential addition to the outfit, to the amusement of onlookers.

Finishing touches being added to young man’s urban-style head covering fashioned from a sheet twisted and knotted round a small mirror at the front, safety pins decorating the bottom edge.

This Enactment explored World 54, in which people develop resourceful and inventive ways of dressing.

It was organised by Eliana Sánchez-Aldana and Juliana Cárdenas Vásquez in the Faculty of Architecture and Design at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. The participants were third-year undergraduate BA Design students (see full credits).

The text guiding this Enactment:

In World 54, production of new textiles has stopped and people dress resourcefully using bedsheets and other random items.

They use sheets of cloth combined with cardigans for warmth, secured using ingeniously versatile straps and button arrangements. Assorted objects, often not originally intended as adornments for the body, are used as a form of oversized jewellery.

Dressing in this culture requires time, effort and creativity. Trends typically focus on the way in which fabric is draped, the arrangement of fastenings and the careful selection of colour and decoration.

Together, the students explored the potential for dressing in World 54, using assorted textiles, accessories and objects.

Following the enactment, the students recorded reflections on their experience, responding to several questions. The document below presents word clouds that provide an insight into their responses:

World 54 Enactment iii reflection word clouds

Following the enactment, the students used the wonder capture tool to identify critical points across the real-world fashion system. They noticed their own dynamics regarding how we consume fashion and questioned how we convinced ourselves it was impossible to escape buying more and more. They questioned the mass and fast manufacturing processes behind the fashion industry and how materials have an environmental impact towards our world.

Close-up of thin pink curly nylon threads around neck and shoulders used as adornment to your woman’s outfit fashioned from a flower-patterned bedsheet.

Back view of accessories to an outfit: beige fur fabric draped across shoulders and crossed at the back; pink ribbon wound round the cross-over, ends trailing; blue plastic coil resembling a set of bangles from wrist to upper arm.

Young women constructing a garment from plain purple fabric fastened down the side of the skirt with numerous safety pins.

Young woman in purple garment fashioned from a curtain draped over right shoulder and arm, a grey belt with gold buckle slung across chest, white yarn wound round top of left arm, ends dangling, looking back over her shoulder to see what her dresser is doing behind her.

Three participants constructing an elaborate artefact from blue ribbon, plastic toys and a small round mirror ribbon, perhaps to adorn and complete the outfit worn by one of them.

Young woman seeming amused as she looks down at her outfit under construction: white diaphanous skirt tied at the side revealing leg in denim jeans wound around by twisted blue fabric tied with dangling threads, bodice covered in dark green fabric, arms draped in two different shades of blue patterned fabric.

Interesting outfit under construction consisting of a voluminous cape and head covering from a large pale pink curtain, a cardigan with bold black and white pattern being considered for a skirt.

Want to try this out for yourself?

View the Enactment recipe

This Enactment was devised by Juliana Cárdenas Vásquez and Eliana Sánchez-Aldana, based on an Enactment recipe by Amy Twigger Holroyd, which built on an Exploration created by Johnny O’Flynn, Gillian Allsopp, Kate Harper and a Fashion Fictions contributor, which was in turn developed from a World contributed by Wendy Ward, 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.

Thanks to all the students from the Research + Creation Unit who took part in this World 54 enactment: Daniela Lara, Danna Mariño Pedraza, David Duarte Roa, Joel Manevich Cepeda, Manuela Gómez Villa, María Fernanda León Ortiz, María José Gómez Duque, Mariana León Ortiz, Mariana Restrepo Acevedo, Mariana Rojas Gallego, Nathalia Huertas Restrepo, Simón de Zubiría Restrepo.

Photography by Oscar Prieto.

Visit the original World 54 fiction

Visit World 54, Exploration A

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