Notion's Notions

Let’s start with the obvious: there is no such thing as non handmade clothes. Any piece of “factory” clothing (that isn’t a single knitted piece with zero seams) is made in a sweatshop. There is no way for a machine to reliably sew fabric, the process has too many variables, stretch and weight and living up complicated seams. It is cheaper and easier to pay people to do it.

We (USAmreicans) have become so detached from the process of making clothes, as if the need to cover ourselves and the love of making those garments represent us isn’t a core human trait. As if making and choosing our clothes isn’t just as sacred of a human ritual as cooking food or making tools. Yes we need it to survive, but we can’t resist using it to tell a story about ourselves in the process.

Like kintsugi. Mending and changing along with us. Seams taken out and in, dressed cropped or lengthened to the current style, patches moved and removed. Fabric is not stone, seams can be ripped and re-attached, re-dyed, every little scrap can turn into something new.

A story:

Back in 2020 or so, my partner at the time had a shitty customer service job, and this meant she had to wear black work pants every day. Of course, we had bought several pairs of equally shitty black work pants, and after a few months the thigh seams begin to wear out. No worries, I simply patch them. And patch them. But eventually, the patches become stronger than the material itself and they rip beyond repair.

This is their first life.

Since only the thick seams are ripped and patched, that leaves 80% of good fabric left! I save them in my box. Come 2022 or so, my cargo shorts begin to rip (at the thighs, of course) and need patching. I take large sections of these shitty black work pants and graft them directly on top of the front left leg, covering about 1/4 of the shorts. I do the same with the back right leg, mostly for artistic purposes. And now I have split color block shorts. To fix the new large patches to the old fabric below, I add quilted designs of clouds and stars in sunset colors. These new shorts get covered in other patches too, of course.

This is their second life.

Summer 2023, I’m working on a pair of pants covered in black and grey frayed patches. From this now half gone shitty black work pants I take the pockets and sew them onto these new pants, along with the pockets of another pair of jeans and I create a chimera of several pairs featuring 7 pockets! (You can see the finished pants here).

This is their third life.

2024 now, and those cargo pants have served me well but are ripping more and more. Once again, the patches are stronger than the original fabric itself. I take some of the nicer patches off to add them to a new pair, and the old one goes into the fabric box. There they sit until early 2025, when I discover a fun pattern for a large brimmed hat. I decide to make a test run out of denim, and as I’m pulling open my fabric box I re-discover the patched up cargo shorts with their quilted clouds on a black background of shitty black work pant patches. I cut half the pattern from these sections, doing my best to capture as much of the design as possible, and paired with some other scrap denim I am satisfied with the effect.

This is their fourth life.

Now the hat ended up too big for me, so I arranged an art trade with a friend who liked it more. And it will live out a new life on the other side of the country, these shitty black work pants that my ex bought for her customer service job.

Fabric contains both memory and infinite possibility.

I am prouder of something that I worked on, prouder still when it had to be mended, patched, painted, anything to make it mine. Truly mine. I don’t need to go out and find the perfect thing, it can be made, adjusted, fit to my liking. In a sense of the literal “fit” but also in a sense of taste. I could throw something out and keep looking, searching for the perfect factory-made item to present itself, or I could take something that is almost there and make it mine. We all have more control over our environments than we care to enforce, we can make things better. Not just fixing them when they are failing in their purpose, but even when things could be just a little more fun, a little more colorful, a little more you. Nothing is beyond edit, nothing is sacred but the things that we have poured ourselves into.

So my “nice” alohas shirts have painted patches covering where I spilled bleach on them and my “nice” pants have fixed seams and my nicest shirts are all ones made from thrift store and garage sale fabric. And it’s good to save the environment (a LOT of water is used in growing and dyeing clothes) and it’s good to not support sweatshops (and they are all sweatshops, unless you can see the person making them themselves) and it’s good to keep old clothes out of landfills. Honestly that alone should be enough to convince anyone that this is important to care about.

But spiritually. Spiritually I feel more connected to my sense of self than ever when I am looking at a piece of fabric and saying “how can I make this more me”. Just like the fabric, I contain both memory and infinite possibility.