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Fashion and agriculture are among the industries with the highest climate footprint. There is enormous potential for impact through improved practice, and a major paradigm shift in both.
Summary
Life in Clothes is a research project led by CSF’s Reader in Fashion Systems, Dr. Mila Burcikova.
Originally conceived as a Postdoctoral Fellowship Award supported by the Sheepdrove Trust (2021-2024), Life in Clothes is now a key area of CSF research. Over the years, its scope has expanded through a number of ongoing research and knowledge partnerships - most recently the Future Fashion Landscapes collaboration with the South East England and South West England Fibresheds (funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council as part of the Design Museum’s Future Observatory).
Life in Clothes examines the interconnections and parallels between fashion making and agricultural practices. It looks across different scales, regions, urban and rural dynamics as well as socio-cultural boundaries. Through Mila’s garden-studio practice and a growing ecosystem of collaborators from fashion, textiles and agricultural communities, Life in Clothes develops a deep understanding of cyclical patterns of nature to inform lifestyles truly rooted in regenerative principles.
Project Aims
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Create and pilot new possibilities for fashion practice in rural ecosystems through fashion making as a response to the dynamics of place.
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Facilitate and learn with the (re-) emerging communities bringing together fashion, textiles, agriculture and place-based knowledge.
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Propose and test how fashion and agricultural systems attuned to the rhythms and cycles of nature can contribute to better lives, and how better lives can in turn be reflected in systems that operate within planetary boundaries.
Life in Clothes
Place-based organic fashion systems for human and environmental healing.
Project Outputs
Press and Podcasts
‘Life in Clothes Almanac: The seasons of garden and fashion making’, The Lissome n⁰4 -Love ethic, 2024, pp. 42-71.
‘Dr Mila Burcikova on the Seasons of Garden and Fashion Making’, Weaving Beings: Conversation with The Lissome – Episode 2. In collaboration with The Architecture of Contemplation podcast, 2024.
‘In seasons’, Selvedge magazine n⁰119 – Savoir Faire, 2024, pp. 22-25.
Cloth Cultures podcast with Amber Butchart, Season 3, Episode 6: Rebecca Chesney and Mila Burcikova, 2024.
Events, Panels and Blogs
In conversation: Life in Clothes and The Lissome n⁰4 -Love ethic launch; hosted by Hardeep Kaur (Architecture of Contemplation podcast) as part of the Imagining Possibilities Festival, London College of Fashion - Centre for Sustainable Fashion, April 19, 2024.
Collective Care: Exploring sustainable fashion through nature's rhythms (Mila Burcikova in conversation with Lubna Husain), UAL – London College of Fashion, December 2, 2024
Ethical Fashion (panel discussion), University of Oxford – The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanties, Everything is Connected Season, Ashmolean Museum, November 29, 2023.
Tending the Earth, Gardening Fashion, Centre for Sustainable Fashion, April 21, 2023.
Exhibitions
Collective Care, London College of Fashion, 24 September – 14 December, 2024
‘Life in Clothes’, Front Gallery and Gallery Foyer, London College of Fashion, East Bank [12 garments, 12 large scale photographs]
The Lab E20, London, 19 April – 24 May, 2024
‘Life in Clothes Almanac: The seasons of garden and fashion making’. Imagining Possibilities Festival, London College of Fashion – Centre for Sustainable Fashion [11 garments, 60+ photographs, 10 natural dye samplers (in collaboration with natural dyer Kate Turnbull)]
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 29 November – 28 January, 2023
‘Colours of Seasons’. Everything is Connected Season, University of Oxford – The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities [5 garments, 20 photographs, 5 natural dye samplers (in collaboration with natural dyer Kate Turnbull)]
British Textile Biennial, Lancashire, 29 September – 29 October, 2023
‘Life in Clothes’, Haworth Art Gallery, Accrington, Lancashire [3 garments, 60 photographs].
Linked Research Projects
Externally led research collaborations
Project Team
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Dr. Mila Burcikova, Reader in Fashion Systems, Research Development Lead at Centre for Sustainable Fashion
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Professor Dilys Williams, Director and Professor of Fashion Design for Sustainability at Centre for Sustainable Fashion
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Naomi Buillard, Head of Strategy at Centre for Sustainable Fashion
Contact for the project
Dr. Mila Burcikova, Reader in Fashion Systems, Research Development Lead at Centre for Sustainable Fashion
Email: m.burcikova@arts.ac.uk