Introducing Social Enterprise

Slow Textiles in Israel

This week Slow Textiles is giving workshops at the vibrant Shenkar College in Tel Aviv.

So far, we met the original designers of the Maskit group, a group of women who made Israeli fashion glamorous by translating ethnic craft skills into fashionable hippy glamour that was at its peak in the 1960s and 70s.

Today, however, there is an underlying localised question for young designers as to what makes up Israeli style and aesthetic identity.

This is summed up in the following statement by Israeli fashion writer, Ayala Raz:

"What was that something that made Israeli fashion gain international prestige and reach impressive peak sales abroad, in the early 60s and 70s?

Can it be reconstructed or can an up-to-date substitute be found for it?

Can a formula, which fuses global influences with local characteristics, exist in our time?

It seems that this magic formula is not easy to figure out, both because its components and the relations between them are flexible and unstable, and because of the rapid pace of change in contemporary fashion..

In the 60’s and 70’s it was natural that the Israeli characteristics in fashion would be based on the ethnicity and authenticity of the clothes worn by the new immigrants (Olim Chadashim in Hebrew) who arrived in Israel in unprecedented numbers.

The ornamental and rhythmic Yemenite embroidery, the sensual colours and textures of the Bukharan and Kurdish clothing, the free dressmaking patterns of the Moroccan robes (galabias) – all these provided an accurate answer to the need for an exotic fashion, that formed in the world fashion market following The Beatles’ visit to India.

Israel of those years succeeded – with the generous help of the Minister of Trade and Industry at the time, Pinchas Sapir, and with the right orientation – in providing an original answer to this need.

The combination of East and West was natural to a country that absorbs immigration from seventy Diasporas, and in her designs for Maskit, the fashion designer, Pini Leitersdorf, managed to find the optimal balance between the two.."

From Ayala Raz's larger article called Is there a local style in Israeli fashion?

Found here: blog.

Textiles Environment Design Green Days

A central aspect to interconnected thinking is making the space in which to reflect and review as a working group.

Without this, ideas are not exchanged and built upon.

The Ever and Again Upcycling Textiles Project, with Becky Earley at Chelsea College of Art, London, made time for such meetings.

The results were fruitful and exponential.

The meetings acted as springboard for the textiles sustainability agenda to flourish and disseminate.

In order for the systems of industrial ecology to continue to be applied wholeheartedly to the fashion and textiles agenda, the Slow Textiles Group proposes a new discursive platform and regular meetings of minds..

Slow Textiles member in New Publication

An exciting new publication to add new dimension to the ethical fashion, textiles and practice literature and debate, Material Actions, is published by Plymouth College of Art Press, 2010.

This is a must-read with inspiring new insights into designers' methodologies and approaches to social enterprise, action research, material/immaterial actions, hacktivism and cultural change.

Billboard Skirts by Emma Neuberg, pp.24-5.

Kate Fletcher writes in her introduction to the book:

"...Through the practice of stitching, felting, spinning, weaving, knitting, bonding, unravelling, cutting and draping fibre and fabric, textile artists bring evidence of a critical mass of activity around issues like resourcefulness, product longevity, materials reuse and repurposing, community building and connectedness with nature, giving us a glimpse of a new way of doing things..

"In all this work, perhaps the most critical factor at play is the practical 'doing' of change; that is, the activity, process and purposeful work around these issues. For the eminent industrial ecologist, John Ehrenfeld, sustainability is impossible without an entirely new model of individual, social and institutional action. It requires simply, that we roll up our sleeves and get involved. Taking the initiative, becoming aware, knowledgeable, hands-on and ultimately productive marks the start of a shift in behaviour. It initiates a process of deep questioning about the rules and goals by which society, institutions and corporations operate and with it gives form to a new type of textile activism...In the words of philosopher, Richard Sennett, this making or craftsmanship 'represents the special human condition of being engaged.' It is an open-ended conversation that is fluid and context-dependent and that is given shape by the movement of hands."

Slow/Fast Making Processes at the V&A

Our Slow/Fast Textiles workshops have started at the V&A with great momentum and engagement.

The key to this 8 week course is the application of slow processes to fast technologies and vice versa to see what can be learnt from this exchange in a quantative and qualitative study.

Emotive responses to the Ballets Russes artefacts and resultant artworks are scanned into Photoshop for re-working, problem-solving, sharing and discussion.

This week's class sees slow processes being introduced through the technology to envisage and develop traditional hands-on techniques for development after halfterm.

See co-designer Melanie's blog for more pics.