Slow Fashion returns for 2018 with the same instructors, but a slightly different format and some new additions!
Let's hit the pause button, and see what we can learn about Slow Fashion. Maine is a beautiful place to turn down the volume, shut off the email, leave the phone in your room, and spend some time exploring this relevant movement. Join this group of three world class makers: Cal Patch, Katrina Rodobaugh, and Jessica Lewis Stevens to learn ways to make your garments both beautiful and ethical, and also an expression of your beliefs. All while treading lightly on the planet.
Slow Fashion returns for 2018. We had such a good time at the beach last year that we all decided we need to do this again. As with the blissful Slow Stitching retreats I have produced for the past three years, the format for this retreat focuses on slowing down your practice to absorb the joy and beauty of Making with your own two hands. Cal, Katrina, and Jessica open their hearts and their tool boxes to share their knowledge and skills for creating a handmade wardrobe you can be proud of. You will spend a full day with each instructor working through basic pattern drafting, mending, and natural dyeing. Cal, Katrina, Jessica, and I will share the ways that you can take each of their workshops together to create a special garment during the retreat, with the ability to apply the same ideas to other parts of your wardrobe.
Last year we included a clothing swap party one night, and that's coming back! Bring items from your closet that just don't get the love they deserve and see if someone else might take them home. Last year there were all sorts of cool ideas that came out of the swap combined with what Cal, Katrina, and Jessica taught, that gave new life to closet misfits. This year we will also be joined by Amy DuFault, Sustainable Fashion activist and journalist, to give a talk about the current state of Slow Fashion, and to offer her perspective throughout the workshops. We will all stay at the Ferry Beach Park location which is literally Right. On. The. Beach. The rooms are rustic and homey, the sound and smell of the ocean ever present. The food is simple but nourishing. You might forget when in time we are. This is a location that transports you back to the Summer Holidays by the beach of our collective childhood. Each day you will spend with one of our three Makers absorbing their specific skills. Then on the last day we will have the opportunity to take all you have learned and play with the ideas, making a special item to take home with you, or further exploring the ways to make it all yours.
~Cal will teach you how to draft a pattern for a simple woven tunic that can easily be customized in myriad ways. This is a perfect intro to pattern-drafting if you've been wanting to dip your toe in the water, and the sewing couldn't be simpler. Sewing your own clothes is satisfying and practical. Drafting your own patterns goes one step further and puts the entire design process in your hands. In your time with Cal, you'll begin by drafting the basic pattern to your measurements, then cut + sew a quick muslin (fit sample) to check fit, and tweak the pattern if necessary. Next you'll continue by either turning your sample into a "wearable muslin", or cut a new one, perhaps adding extra seams or pockets. Beginner stitchers will keep it fairly simple, and those with more advanced skills can customize to their hearts' content. Everyone will leave with a tunic that reflects their personality and reminds them of this inspiring week in Maine! This basic tunic shape makes a lovely "blank canvas" pattern to use as a foundation for all sorts of techniques: piecing, quilting, embroidering, dyeing, eco-printing… and of course you can combine and layer the treatments to create the most special garments. We all have fat quarters or other smallish cuts of precious fabrics, too small to use for garments - until now! You can play around with different seam placements and piece together smaller scraps of fabric, placing some of those treasured morsels front and center. You can also incorporate some of your dyed or stitched samples from this week into your project.
~ Katrina will share her prodigious resources, leading the group through some of the more direct ways to participate in slow fashion through mending and repairing the garments we already own. By keeping our garments in good condition we extend their usefulness, postpone their fate in a landfill, and also better understand the value of hand-stitching and the required skill to make or repair garments. Furthermore, mending makes our wardrobe more fashionable and more meaningful. Not only is our mending useful, but with a few simple textile art techniques and thoughtful design, it can be quite beautiful too. Sashiko is a traditional Japanese stitching technique that lends itself beautifully to contemporary crafts. Sashiko is the perfect stitch to mend existing garments or to create beautiful new textiles. Katrina will lead the group in a discussion of traditional techniques like Boro, Sashiko, Kantha, embroidery, and quilting and their modern applications in Visible Mending and Slow Fashion. You'll also consider "mendfulness" or applying mindfulness to fashion and the creative opportunity in repair.
In the first half of this workshop you'll focus on a warm-up Sashiko stitching project that could be used as a patch pocket or embroidery for the tunic made with Cal Patch. During this design project you'll discuss various resources for continuing beyond the classroom. In the second half, participants will utilize the Sashiko and Boro techniques to mend an existing garment with individual consultations. Students will leave the workshop with a design project, mended garment, various resources, an introduction to mendfulness, and greater stitching confidence and skill. Basic sewing and stitching skills are required.
For this Slow Fashion retreat, Amy DuFault will be our sustainable fashion speaker-in-residence giving ongoing encouragement as we mend, knit, and make on the porch, and will be on hand to answer any and all questions you might have throughout the week. As she feels the process of becoming more conscious about the fashion industry starts with baby steps, we'll take a 5 day journey with her to look at how every aspect of our lives can be an opportunity to look closer at ourselves, and how that reflects what we buy.
Part 12-step program, part fashion-bootcamp, we'll all (hopefully) come to terms with just why it is we live in a world driven by fast fashion and what our place is within it.
A veteran of the slow fashion movement, Amy DuFault is a sustainable fashion writer, consultant and Director of Communications at Pratt Institute's Brooklyn Fashion + Design Accelerator. Having spent the past 20+ years as a journalist (12 of which have been laser focused on sustainable fashion), with bylines in The Guardian, GOOD and other publications, Amy has morphed as a professional writer penning stories about sustainable fashion trends to a less embraced part of the industry focused on human rights, environmental protection and transparency.
In addition to her writing, she has served as digital content director and consultant for natural dye guru Kathy Hattori of Botanical Colors for the past 4 years, and continues to work with brands looking to improve their ethical and sustainable benchmarks.
Along with food writer Anna Brones of Comestible and environmental filmmaker Jenny Nichols, Amy launched the Food & Fibers Project last year to look at the intersection of food and fiber, and the challenges and similarities both industries face. Their first film featuring Kathy Hattori of Botanical Colors won a place in the National Geographic sponsored Mountainfilm Festival in Telluride, Colorado last year. The trio continue to engage through storytelling with the goal of getting people to consider where both their food and fibers come from.
Amy splits her time living on Cape Cod with her husband and two teenagers and in Brooklyn and loves the balance.
Registration is for instruction (and some special goodies) only. If you decide to join us you will need to contact the Ferry Beach Park Association directly to make your housing and meals arrangements. They have many levels of housing set aside for us, so hopefully there is something that works with your budget. This year there are some extra options if you are returning and want to share quarters with others. Go to their website here to read about your options. Call or email them to set up your lodging once you have paid your deposit. Tell them you are coming to the Slow Fashion retreat when you sign up and you will get our room rate, as well as being in our specific locations. They can even set you up with a Slow Fashion roommate! If you are local and would like to join us as a day student, that's great! You can still join us for lunches if you like, meal cards can be purchased on site, or in advance.
In order to give you plenty of time to check, and double check, your schedule, and confer with partners, bosses, children, parents, and pets, to make sure this will work for you, I am delaying the opening of registration. Registration will open on Monday, March 5th at 3:00pm EST. It will be announced through my newsletter first! So if you are not on the newsletter email list, sign up now! The link is at the bottom of the home page. You will need to pay a non-refundable deposit to register, and then arrangements can be made for how to pay your balance.