Re-imagining Textiles
I am driven to humanise our textiles, connecting them to places, people and experiences. To do this I work with a restorative method of making, looking for ways to recapture value in the textiles and clothing we already have. This shifts the focus from scarcity and extraction to abundance and regeneration.
I take a critical, response-led approach to design and development. My continual research and experimentation helps generate new ways of understanding materials, our relationship to them and their role in our everyday lives.
Justice
Push Pull’s working relationships are established through shared values of care for the earth, equity and empowerment. The textile industry is strengthened through racial justice, intersectional environmentalism and recognition of cultural provenance. Our partnerships are formed on the basis of trust, mutual respect and clearly defined representation.
Indigenous and cultural craft innovation is ancient and sacred, and much of this ingenuity has been appropriated, stolen and re-contextualised for economic gain by the Global North. Push Pull strives to set just standards for ethicality and accountability in craft and design.
Locality
As part of an interdependent network of handmakers, Push Pull fosters and invests in local economies. In my community, I partner with small businesses, conservation societies, secondhand suppliers and buy-and-sell groups. I also work with regional partners in Australia, Japan, Taiwan and India to exchange goods, skills and knowledge.
Push Pull rejects the concept of monopolistic companies and centralised supply chains, and embraces collective and cooperative systems of reciprocity.
Existing Materials
Push Pull products are created from existing materials that have been discarded, damaged or are otherwise no longer fit for wear or use. Capturing and repurposing decommissioned textiles means energy that would normally be expelled in the creation of virgin fibre is eliminated.
I use virgin fibres periodically (about 15% of my materials) in dye tests for colour consistency, or for supplementary structure in some textiles. When I do, I choose to work with handloomed cotton, linen and hemp produced by Anuprerna, Moral Fibre and STSC.
Natural Materials
By only working with natural fibres and dye treatments, I ensure all my textiles can eventually be returned to the earth after a lifetime of use. Plant and animal hair fibres, when composted correctly, biodegrade within one week to a few years, releasing carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen into the soil. This has a positive impact on ecosystem health.
In choosing not to use synthetic or blended fibres, I encourage the move away from fossil-fuel derived manufacturing processes and toward phasing non-compostable materials out of our textile systems.
Reduction
I use low impact and low energy processes to ensure a minimal trace is left on the environment. I weave on a manual loom and construction techniques are divided between hand and machine stitching. I extract whole plant dyestuffs by hand to reduce water and energy consumption, and waste water and dye byproducts can be released onto the garden or as greywater.
The chemicals I use in my dye processes are non-hazardous to NOHSC standards and can also be released into greywater. I don’t use synthetic surfactants, levelling agents, or toxic mordants such as aluminium acetate, tin or chrome.
This document current as of August 2021.
I would like to thank and credit Mathilda Tham and Kate Fletcher, authors of The Earth Logic Fashion Action Research Plan, whose themes I drew on heavily in developing my Action Principles. It is a privilege to know of and share in this vision for the future.