Folk Fashion

A dynamic resurgence in sewing and knitting is under way, with many people enjoying making and mending their own garments at home. However, stories abound of homemade clothes languishing at the back of the wardrobe. Amy Twigger Holroyd draws on ideas of fashion, culture and craft to explore makers' lived experiences of creating and wearing homemade clothes in a society dominated by shop-bought garments. Using the innovative metaphor of fashion as common land, Folk Fashion investigates the complex relationship between making, well-being and sustainability. Twigger Holroyd combines her own experience as a designer and knitter with first-hand accounts from folk fashion makers to explore this fascinating, yet under-examined, area of contemporary fashion culture.Looking to the future, she also considers how sewers and knitters might maximise the radical potential of their activities.

Dr Amy Twigger Holroyd is Professor of Alternative Fashion Systems at Nottingham School of Art & Design, part of Nottingham Trent University. She has explored the emerging field of fashion and sustainability since 2004, initially via her craft fashion knitwear label, Keep & Share. Amy's work has been featured in various exhibitions, books and publications, from Vogue to Fashion Theory. Her research today focuses on fashion transitions: the participatory exploration of alternative, open and plural fashion systems that respect the Earth's capacity to support life. Amy's Arts & Humanities Research Council-funded Fellowship project, Fashion Fictions, brings people together to generate, experience and reflect on engaging fictional visions of alternative fashion cultures and systems. Other initiatives include Reknit Revolution, a project supporting knitters to rework the items in their wardrobes, and research networks Stitching Together and Crafting the Commons. Amy has authored and edited several books, including her monograph Folk Fashion: Understanding Homemade Clothes (I.B. Tauris, 2017).

Cast List List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Chapter 1 Introducing folk fashion Chapter 2 The resurgence of folk fashion Chapter 3 Identity, connection and the fashion commons Chapter 4 Why DIY? The experience of making and wearing homemade Chapter 5 Reknitting: an experimental folk fashion practice Chapter 6 Patterns, design and creativity Chapter 7 Making the wardrobe Chapter 8 Folk fashion and the future Bibliography Index