Back to the roots
Summer ‘25, Lanlivery, Cornwall
Back in October my Mother in law- Barbara, came to stay. She’s not one of those frightful M.I.L types. Barbara is a wise and intuitive soul, a generous and welcoming host. She came with me to the studio one day, perched atop a stool and unpicked jeans for several hours, choosing to spend some of her holiday time to better understand what I get up to. As we worked together and she came to different parts of the jeans she would ask “and do you save the zips?” - “No”, I replied, “I used to but havent for a while…”
“And the labels, do you use those?” - “Hmmm…I do save them but I dont really use them”
“And this lovely printed pocket- will you use that?” - “Errr, I don’t usually….”
There was no judgement, no ctitcism: but it made me think.
At her request, I made Barbara a Rhyme&Reason woven waistband bag for Christmas, using the pieces she had painstakingly unpicked and included all the extra parts. She loved it and especially having used all the wee bits which have so much character.
Making the recycled denim overshirts leaves me with remnants from 4-5 pairs of jeans for each shirt. If I get in the zone for shirts then I will quickly have a mountain of basically, butts, to see to. Come June this needed sorting. Barbara’s questions were in my mind as I began on the pile and this time I saved everything, as I should have done, always. I took my time and I let the ideas flow.
Her visit to the studio was a timely wake-up that I had slipped out of my ethos. Letting production and profit outweigh the ethics. Never ‘having time’ to meticulously recycle all the precious pieces. More and more in life I see that we make time for the things we want to, and its our choice, in the end, what we prioritise.
This endeavour was built on clever recycling, meticulous re-making and as minimal waste as possible. Time to get back to the roots!
Out of it has come a few small but pleasant additions. Cute card and coin purses which use the many varied and beautiful stitched back-pockets and short fly zips. A new boxy shape of pouch or pencil case using my most favourite recycle:the trusty belt-loop (which come in so many minute variations that you really must take a closer look at your own jeans!) And those 100s of saved labels: now adorning every product in all their multi-lingual, textured, assorted sizes.
My orignal tag-line was Celebrate the well-worn, and its time to start doing that again, with bel(t loop)s- on!
