Since 2012, Jane Milburn has advocated for living simply through sustainable everyday practices with a particular focus on how we choose, care for and dispose of clothing, and a decade on has been awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia for service to fashion sustainability.
Jane Milburn, OAM, recognised for slow clothing advocacy. Photo by Robin McConchie
When we follow a predictable path, we walk in another’s shadow. Only when we explore our own creativity and embrace the unusual can something original emerge. Jane Milburn reports
What is unusual? The dictionary says it is something remarkable or interesting because it is different from or better than others. Synonyms include extraordinary, singular, particular, marked, outstanding, notable, distinctive, striking, unique, unparalleled, mind-blowing and superior.
Jane Milburn, left, and Elizabeth Kingston, right, wear their own style. Photos by Patria Jannides and Evelina.
Changing our behaviour is the biggest thing we can do to reduce our energy and resource consumption. Great to see reloving options expanding, with UNTAGGED Sustainable Fashion Exchange a new option for keeping wardrobes fresh whilst being kinder to our wallets, each other, and the planet.
They’ve been sharing quotes through their Instagram platform, including words from Cate Blanchett, Jane Goodall, Emma Watson, Livia Firth, Vivienne Westwood, Carry Somers, Elizabeth Cline, Celine Semaan, and Jane Milburn (that’s me).
By Jane Milburn *
Sowing or sewing? If you are a gardener or a sewist, you reap what you sow or sew. While there are many gardeners among us growing some food, there are fewer sewists making their own clothes.
In the same way many are sowing seeds to yield nutritious home-grown, local, natural food, it is time to invest energy in sewing local natural clothes.
With global supply chains pumping out 80 billion garments each year, most people have lost sight of where and how things are made, and what from. Slavery combined with increasing use of synthetic/plastic fibres, has led many to buy two to four times what we used to, resulting in waste and pollution, and a loss of skills and knowledge about clothes.
Over the past two decades, globalisation and production efficiencies have meant it is cheaper to buy clothes than make them. We’ve got used to affordable, ever-changing styles. Shopping is addictive and we’re encouraged to buy quantity over quality for the good of the economy. It is only when we stop and think about why clothes are so cheap that we come to understand they are not properly costed, that exploitation of people and resources exists in the system.
Each of us influences the future of the fashion industry through our buying choices. Surely the beginning of a new decade is a great time to turn over a new leaf. Let’s think about fewer clothes of better quality that we wear for longer.
Author Jane Milburn with Julian Roberts from Royal College of Art London at the Fabric subtraction-cutting workshop held at the University of the Sunshine Coast.
WornOut is an annual showcase of creativity and resourcefulness organised by Reverse Garbage Queensland to showcase designers working to reduce textile waste, with the 2019 theme being The Future of Waste.
As ambassador, Jane Milburn said that future really must be for us to waste nothing – and invest creative effort to keep materials endlessly circulating. Jane and ABC Brisbane’s Rebecca Levingston co-hosted this year’s event.
Rebecca Levingston and Jane Milburn co-hosts of WornOut 2019
‘There has never been a more important time to change our thinking and actions around reuse – to fully value and appreciate our planet’s precious resources,’ Jane said.
WornOut is now in its third year and taps into the global awakening about social and ecological impacts of the fashion industry, which contributes up to 10 percent of humanity’s carbon emissions. It is curated by Elizabeth Kingston, supported Brisbane City Council and the Queensland Department of Environment and Science, and was held on November 23 at Princess Theatre with showcases of refashion, wearable art and cos play.
Jane said the purpose of the WornOut showcase is to:
What part are you playing in the Fashion Revolution? I am proud to have been on the Fashion Revolution Australia committee from the early days when the world awoke following the devastating Rana Plaza factory collapse in April 2013. Thousands killed, injured and orphaned in pursuit of profits and cheap clothes in distant comfortable countries like ours.
Jane Milburn wears upcycled silk. Photo by Robin McConchie at Mt Coot-tha Botanic Gardens.
I created Textile Beat in 2013 based on a lifetime of making my own clothes so I could influence change by focusing on natural fibres (not plastic), upcycling (less waste) and making in your own style (storyful clothes). I often make my clothes from natural fibres reclaimed from garments that might otherwise become landfill. This one, above, (photographed by Robin McConchie at Mt Coot-tha Botanic Gardens) is silk from five garments that I recreated into two squares and a rectangle, with two small rectangles for sleeves. I used subtraction-cutting techniques pioneered by Julian Roberts to transform these pieces into a dress. The wooden beads were reclaimed from what was a family fruit bowl, silk head scarf from opshop and crochet earrings made at a recent workshop with Jenny King at Braiding in the Wildwood. Creative, disruptive, natural, indie style. That is how I choose to make a difference in the world and I explained why in my book Slow Clothing: finding meaning in what we wear.
As part of our recent fabulous three-day Fashion Revolution Brisbane event, one of several activities I ran was an upcycling masterclass with designer Darin Rose and 15 fabulous participants in the Fabrication Lab at The Edge, where we were sewing outside the lines. Here’s a video which Robin McConchie produced from the workshop.
Here’s the link to our On the Textile Beat April enews. Big shifts are happening as we have lived experience of climate change. Businesses and communities are responding by adapting approaches and behaviours. We are part of the Fashion Revolution and excited about our upcoming three-day event in Brisbane. See below for profiles of my colleagues Julie Hillier and Elizabeth Kingston who will be joining the discussion about localism on Sunday April 28. Also at bottom is the overall program – come join the conversation, workshops and markets from April 26-28.
Brisbane slow fashion practitioners bring on the revolution
It is time for a Fashion Revolution – and Brisbane slow fashion practitioners are bringing together an immersive experience on April 26-28 to celebrate all that is local, sustainable and creative.
Brisbane makers and menders, movers and shakers – led by Naomi Huntsman, Jane Milburn, Leah Musch and Kim Bailey – are bringing you a three-day event exploring ways we can revolutionise the fashion system through our choices.
Mended garments carry a story of care. They reflect the triumph of imperfection over pretension while the act of mending itself brings transformation in both mender and mended.
By embracing repair as a valid and useful act we, the menders, are stitching new life-energy into something others step over in the scrabble onwards and upwards. To pause, apply creative problem-solving and add a mark of care to our clothes, we extend their life and bring meaning to our own.
The clothes we wear are a statement of values. We may go through stages of searching for newer, sharper images and think clothes, like makeup and leopard spots, can camouflage and attract the right sort of attention. Alas, the pipe dream. Continue Reading →
Emma Williamson’s story embodies the values, spirit and actions of The Slow Clothing Project. When she moved to the remote Pilbara region in Western Australia last year, Emma discovered fresh purpose through handmade. She found a local need of women wanting to learn to sew and set up Sturt Pea Conscious Clothing business to bring inspired clothing into the world and return benefits to people and the planet.
Emma Williamson wears the dress she made from a sheet for The Slow Clothing Project. Photos by Helen Osler.
“I teach a sewing class, and contribute my skills in dressmaking at a weekly mother’s group. I love helping people to gain an appreciation and aptitude for garment making. I’ve seen it can be very empowering, particularly for those coming from a low socio-economic group,” Emma said.