Kirrily MacRaild

I made my first skirt when I was ten. Cut from dusky pink cotton corduroy, it was a knee-length a-line-pencil-skirt hybrid with an elastic waistband and two square pockets on the front. And my main memory of wearing it was when we made the trip from our country-town home to Melbourne to pick up my grandparents who had just arrived from Adelaide on the train.

I learned to sew on a Husqvarna 2000 – the home machine that felt ahead of its time with its ability to change stitch styles with the insertion of various cogs at the back. This was the era when our Baby Boomer mothers taught us to sew because clothes were cheaper to make than to buy. It was before the days of the three dollar t-shirts in department stores. I convinced myself I preferred the choice that came with homemade clothes, but secretly I still wished to enter the brightly lit clothing stores like most of the girls at school.

When I worked my way through my gap year, I had the money to go those brightly lit stores and buy off-the-rack clothing, but not the confidence. One or two pieces was all I managed. And the four years of undergrad study that followed put me back into the mindset of ‘cheaper to make’. But I would make things quickly and roughly, cutting corners and paying no attention to fabrics or styles that might work well. I can still recall the tone in my mother’s voice when she looked at the fabric I once put onto the cutting counter.

‘I guess that’s okay if you want things made from curtain material.’

She wasn’t making a judgement about the print on the fabric. I had literally chosen material from the curtain section for my clothes. And the quilting section. And while the rules for fabric usage are fluid, my choices were more indicative of the rush I was in to churn out enough clothes so I wouldn’t be caught out by students for wearing something twice in one week than any creative intention.

Within months of my first teaching job I embraced shop-bought fashion, and the fast but not-quite-fashion produced from my sewing efforts was pushed to the back of the wardrobe.

Once married, my husband started travelling regularly to Hong Kong and would bring back lengths of silk from the markets. I panicked one night when he rang me extraordinarily late. What had happened?

‘How much material is enough to make something? I’m at a market stall where there’s some silk velvet.’

Be still my beating heart.

It was time to sew again, but a little more slowly as I carefully considered each length of silk my husband presented to me after each trip. Soon my wardrobe was filled with an assortment of silk skirts, shirts and dresses in a variety of fabric types and prints.

But pregnancy saw me back at the shops, grabbing things from the shelves with speed but, thankfully, more discernment than I had used in the past. There was still the daily scrutiny of my students holding me accountable.

When my daughters were young I engaged in a strange mix of delighting in making them things from the smallest of remnants, and discovering the cheap outlet stores for myself. My weight was fluctuating and I claimed I couldn’t justify paying too much money for anything that might not fit for long. And I was fashionably ignorant to the notion of purchasing styles with sizing flexibility.

During these stay-at-home-mum years, however, I had the time to experiment with fitting techniques and to learn the craft of dressmaking in more detail. There was a wealth of knowledge that came with the internet and online classes. I was purchasing new sewing machine feet, moving from polyesters to bamboo, understanding words like warp and weft, and discovering the sewist’s version of outlet stores – the remnant warehouses that sold the leftovers from the big fashion houses. Piece by piece, my wardrobe was filled with me-made garments. Experiments gone right. Remnants turned into one-of-a-kind pieces. Results of endless playing with colours and textures. And the courage to put them on my body and step out of the house, comfortable and satisfied that maybe this time I would sustain my sewing efforts beyond a season.

My history of making clothes is varied, and it still fluctuates from taking the time to produce something of my own to ‘oh-my-goodness-you-have-school-camp-next-week-let’s-go-to-the-clothing-outlets-tomorrow’. I’d like to think I have, at my heart, a slow clothing ethic. One that is both conscious and curious about where my clothing comes from. And I’d like to think that I am increasingly becoming more committed to ensuring that I am sourcing my clothing ethically. But I confess that the temporal fast-fashion trend can consume me, particularly when it feels like I need something as quickly and as cheaply as possible. Prevention is better than cure, they say, and my next step is to find a slow path solution to all of my fashion acquisitions, including those last minute purchases.

I am aware that I am not yet where I want to be. 

And while awareness is not the answer, it’s not a bad first step.

Fashion Revolution week was from 23-29 April 2018. You can find out more about the fashion revolution movement here.