This weekend I was hunting for old clothing that I could practice reworking for my project. I stumbled on a pair of heavily worn vintage Levis at the flea market for $1. I spent the next two days doing research and figuring out how I could repair the worn-out areas and patch up all the holes. I learned about daring and about how to reinforce weak areas through this project. When it was time to do the repair, without thinking I went for the traditional way of hiding the wear and damage as much as possible during the repair. I used identical thread for the darning and similar colors for the patches and reinforcement fabric. When I looked back at what I made I was disappointed it was less interesting than when I had bought it. All the character and history the pants had from their previous owner was gone. This moment made me realize that I needed to rethink my approach to repairs. Instead of following the traditional way of hiding the wear during repairs, I needed to stay true to my essential question and highlight the history of the garment. I could use a contrasting thread for darning, and patch from the inside of the pants to highlight the wear instead of hiding it. When I am doing custom modifications such as the split hem I can take out the bottom and reinforce it instead of just adding fabric.
Emmett, I think this idea of how objects tell stories is really interesting. There is the story of the object’s function, but there is also the story about its “experience.” With regard to the pants, you can’t really know their actual experience, but there is evidence of the consequence of that experience. Finding ways to “preserve,” this evidence while making the object more useful is important and it actually takes an item that was mass produced and imbues it with some new sense of character. I wonder how this idea of making an object more unique might have a more positive impact on our treating it in a way that reduces the likelihood that it ends up in the waste stream (i..e, that without changing its function we can also extend its useful life).