Textile transformations
Exploring sustainable design and handling practices in the dress collection of the Royal Danish Collection
Keywords:
Science and Technology Studies, post-humanism, care, textiles and dress, craft of use, The Royal Danish Costume CollectionAbstract
There is a strong and lively debate on how to transform Western societies to more sustainable ways of producing and consuming goods. Current research on fashion and sustainability focuses on durability and long-term use to obtain this goal. In this paper, we combine this interest with the post-humanist thinking of Maria Puig de la Bellacasa’s concept matter of care. Care, understood as a more responsible and affective approach to socio-technical assemblages, may be one way of stimulating a more sustainable people-product relationship. In this paper, we employ the Royal Danish Costume Collection as a reservoir of examples of a more frugal and caring approach to textiles and dress. Based on current research literature, we explore how selected objects in the collection have been constructed, combined, washed, repaired, and redesigned to promote durability and long-term use. We conclude that the collection holds many examples of responsible and caring approaches to textiles, which forms a marked contrast to the rationalized and accelerated dress culture of today and conclude the paper by discussing whether knowledge of past practices may inspire and inform future practices as well as how the museum may act as an agent of change in the green transition.
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