ments. Each donated piece of clothing had to be coupled with the information
about where, when and why it was acquired, which stories it had gone through, and
why it was now passed on.
As the garments were later cut up and reformed the labels were remixed too, so that
each “new” garment would be joined by a recollection of its “memories”. We read
the stories, discussed them and our own relationships with our clothes. We worked
on several methods and recycle designs, yet in the first weeks it was hard to encour-
age the neighbourhood participants to be radical enough to cut pieces apart and
reform them. Most often the redesigns were forms of mending, meaning that the
stories were neither cut up nor transferred between the garments. But as the work-
shop evolved this changed and in the last week a lot of beautiful pieces were pro-
duced and screen-printed patterns and labels were added.Brands are usually built on promises
and expectations that helps consum-
ers build self-esteem when facing
an unknown future. We buy into
these dreams to help us become our
future promising selves. With Itayan
Avlusu we instead tried to highlight
and provide comfort from the past.
Every garment we reformed contained
the remixed stories from its different
assembled parts.
In the end of the two-month project we arranged a fashion-weekend at the Oda
Projesi apartment and refurnished the rooms from an impoverished but delightful
sewing studio to a mimicked fashion store of the Italyan Avlusu brand. We received
quite a few visitors, many of who were interested in the garments on display. Yet,
when they asked for the price we said they could only be swapped for the equiva-
lent garment the customer was wearing, and they needed to fill in a form for their
swapped piece, so adding to the material resources. Some found it amusing and
started filling in the forms.
Yet, as they proceeded and went through the questions, most had second thoughts.
Apparently the process of answering the questions revealed that their garments
carried stories too valuable to be deserted. Instead of swapping their garment they
started to offer to come the next day with up to ten other pieces and not just the
one they were wearing. We refused to renegotiate the initial conditions of the deal.
Our concept proved counter efficient and only one garment was swapped during
our glamorous fashion weekend.
Even though the swap-concept proved imperfect for sustaining the resources
something else was proved – that methods for making people think twice aboutfashion?!now