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Back to ArchiveAesthetics in Mending
2023
Garment mending as a care and maintenance practice does not solely have the potential to extend clothing lifetime. Mending can also be seen as a bottom-up approach to altering a clothing culture through creativity and making. As a further exploration of how materials and aesthetics may influence individual fashion expressions, Louise Ravnløkke made and analysed full garment mending experiments.
Louise has mended textiles and garments since childhood. When she knew how to sew, she had the basic techniques to repair simple damages and as she developed her skills alongside challenges of damages of various kinds, she also developed her understanding of how to navigate possibilities. However, the acceptance of mending as being visible has in recent years evolved as a social tendency together with the ecological awareness of the need for climate transition. We are seeing a grassroots movement of mending garments with decoration – even showing examples of how to emphasise and highlight the wear and tear of the damage. Being curious about this change in the precepting of garment patina, damages, and wear and tear, Louise set out to explore how this might influence fashion aesthetics: Can we talk about aesthetics in mending?
As part of the exploration, Louise challenged her own practice of mending by opening her attention to decorative approaches to mending. She was curious to experiment openly and at the same time use her mending practice to analyse and search for structure in the engagements with mending different types of garments and, likewise, different kinds of damages. As a result, Louise developed a selection of textile materials to inspire others to also experiment with aesthetics in mending.
In connection with two co-explorative mending workshops, Louise collected examples of various mending cases to further study and explore possibilities of aesthetics in mending. The outcome of the First-hand material experimentation and the co-explorative mending workshops resulted in 24 mended garments and 52 mending explorations, as several garments had more than one damage in need of repair.
Grouping and analysing the characteristics of the cases of full-garment mending assisted in building an overview of textile aesthetic engagements with mending. Progressing from the left to the right in the spectrum of Mending Concepts shows: (1) controlling the damage, (2) approaching mending in a reconstructive or decorative way, and (3) intending a material expression that is contrasting, supporting, matching, or blending in with the existing garment design. Each of these steps relates to choices of material and aesthetic qualities which underlines a complexity when engaging with mending while taking the appearance into account and not solely focusing on functional durability. Embedded within this is also the potential of cultivating a broader understanding of what aesthetic value mending might bring to a damaged garment. Delving deeper into the engagements may assist in understanding the creative process and the landscape of material expressions, and how these may provide a new aesthetic appreciation of a damaged garment.
This topic is discussed in the journal article Textile Aesthetics in Mending, which is forthcoming in Spring 2024, and in the conference paper Textile Aesthetic Dialogues of Garment Mending presented at PLATE conference in June 2023. The conference paper can be downloaded here
Kucher, I. & Ravnløkke, L., 2023, “Designing Engagements with Mending Practices.” In The Design School in Green Transition, edited by Ravnløkke, L. & Krog Petersen, M. Design School Kolding, Denmark. https://www.designforplanet.dk/projects/mending-concepts/ Ravnløkke, L. & Kucher, I., 2021, “The Mending Concepts Booklet.” Design School Kolding, pp. 1-21. https://www.designforplanet.dk/projects/mending-concepts/ https://www.designforplanet.dk/projects/mending-concepts/
Louise has mended textiles and garments since childhood. When she knew how to sew, she had the basic techniques to repair simple damages and as she developed her skills alongside challenges of damages of various kinds, she also developed her understanding of how to navigate possibilities. However, the acceptance of mending as being visible has in recent years evolved as a social tendency together with the ecological awareness of the need for climate transition. We are seeing a grassroots movement of mending garments with decoration – even showing examples of how to emphasise and highlight the wear and tear of the damage. Being curious about this change in the precepting of garment patina, damages, and wear and tear, Louise set out to explore how this might influence fashion aesthetics: Can we talk about aesthetics in mending?
As part of the exploration, Louise challenged her own practice of mending by opening her attention to decorative approaches to mending. She was curious to experiment openly and at the same time use her mending practice to analyse and search for structure in the engagements with mending different types of garments and, likewise, different kinds of damages. As a result, Louise developed a selection of textile materials to inspire others to also experiment with aesthetics in mending.
In connection with two co-explorative mending workshops, Louise collected examples of various mending cases to further study and explore possibilities of aesthetics in mending. The outcome of the First-hand material experimentation and the co-explorative mending workshops resulted in 24 mended garments and 52 mending explorations, as several garments had more than one damage in need of repair.
Grouping and analysing the characteristics of the cases of full-garment mending assisted in building an overview of textile aesthetic engagements with mending. Progressing from the left to the right in the spectrum of Mending Concepts shows: (1) controlling the damage, (2) approaching mending in a reconstructive or decorative way, and (3) intending a material expression that is contrasting, supporting, matching, or blending in with the existing garment design. Each of these steps relates to choices of material and aesthetic qualities which underlines a complexity when engaging with mending while taking the appearance into account and not solely focusing on functional durability. Embedded within this is also the potential of cultivating a broader understanding of what aesthetic value mending might bring to a damaged garment. Delving deeper into the engagements may assist in understanding the creative process and the landscape of material expressions, and how these may provide a new aesthetic appreciation of a damaged garment.
This topic is discussed in the journal article Textile Aesthetics in Mending, which is forthcoming in Spring 2024, and in the conference paper Textile Aesthetic Dialogues of Garment Mending presented at PLATE conference in June 2023. The conference paper can be downloaded here
Related Sources
Ravnløkke, L., 2023, “Textile Aesthetic dialogues of garment mending.” In Conference Proceedings 5th PLATE (Product Lifetime And The Environment), edt. By Niinimäki, K. & Kirsti, C., Espoo, Finland - 31 May - 2 June 2023, pp. 835-42. https://www.plateconference.org/call-for-contributions-2/Kucher, I. & Ravnløkke, L., 2023, “Designing Engagements with Mending Practices.” In The Design School in Green Transition, edited by Ravnløkke, L. & Krog Petersen, M. Design School Kolding, Denmark. https://www.designforplanet.dk/projects/mending-concepts/ Ravnløkke, L. & Kucher, I., 2021, “The Mending Concepts Booklet.” Design School Kolding, pp. 1-21. https://www.designforplanet.dk/projects/mending-concepts/ https://www.designforplanet.dk/projects/mending-concepts/