Threading Together Visions of a Brave, Regenerative World

There is a myth of an old woman who lives in a cave, as ancient as time itself. She tends to a cauldron over a fire of mysterious origin and devotes herself to weaving an exquisite cloak - the most beautiful ever made. Her dedication is tireless. She pauses only briefly to stir the pot, which holds the seeds and roots that will sprout into the herbs, grains and plants that sustain life on Earth. When she reaches the fringe of the garment, she wants it to be special. She chooses porcupine quills. Years of biting them down wear her teeth to nubs, yet she continues. Slowly, she shuffles to the cauldron to stir the stew. All the while, a black dog - there from the beginning - watches her closely. As she turns her back, the dog gently tugs at a loose thread. The garment begins to unravel. Thread by thread, the masterpiece comes apart. As the stew of life is stirred, the cloak dissolves into a tangled mess on the floor.

More on this, later.

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For generations, the soil was recognised as the foundation of all life – from it came the seed that became the plant, that contained the fibre, that was spun or woven into cloth; dyed, cut and architected onto the body. From one generation to the next, it connected people to each other. Clothing was rooted in the land and the season; the garment spoke to the crop that yielded it – it literally sprouted from the earth. In many places, these highly attuned and ways of growing, crafting and honouring, remain.

In Mai Châu, Vietnam, for example, the H’mong, Black Tay (Thái Đen) and White Tay (Thái Trắng) – three of Vietnam’s 54 ethnic groups – continue the traditions of their ancestors. Each group is identifiable by a distinct palette or pattern incorporated within their clothing. The H’mong are especially renowned, for example, for their indigo blue garments dyed from natural Indigo plants, the cultivation of hemp and batik drawing using beeswax. 

Historically, garments did more than clothe the body; they carried memory. They spoke of lineage, community and knowledge, woven with hands that understood the soil, the seasons and the sacred. Making was more than craft; it was kinship – a garment spoke to where you came from and the direct family members, or extended kin, who had been involved in both the raising of you, and the stitching of the garments that held you as you walked through life. Each piece spoke to its hyperlocal origins and intergenerational care. Clothing was heirloom and habitat, not commodity.

For the Quechua people, high up in the Peruvian Andes, life is synonymous with traditional alpaca herding, and the weaving of alpaca fibres. Here, people continue to weave alpaca wool with a purpose that transcends function. Weaving is language by which the group communicates their thoughts and feelings about the natural world. The warp and weft convey stories, personal histories, ceremonies, and the identity of a people. Patterns and colours aren't decorative – they are narrative tools. Also, by merit of the fact that garments are made only from naturally occurring fibres and dyes, means they can be returned to the Earth, to decompose and re-enter the cycle, and story, of life – quite literally. This practice is circular not by trend, but by nature. This practice was revered, and remains so to this day, but ever more the pressures of modernity are encroaching upon this way of life.

Time, too, was once held differently. Clothes were slow, precious, specific. Making was bound to seasons and celestial movements. Pieces were shared among siblings, cousins, communities. I can attest to this in my own upbringing. Though born in the UK, my own lineage is rooted in Punjab, North-West India. Our Indian clothing was always tailored. We visited fabric stores, learned to distinguish between cottons, silks, brocades – we met the weavers, the embroiderers, the dyers. Choices were deliberate. Our mother encouraged us to think carefully before committing, as these items were to be worn for years to come. Garments lasted, and lived on. There was no stigma attached to re-wearing. To receive a ‘pre-loved’ item was to be a recipient of both pragmatism and generosity; the message was always, “do not waste the materials or the effort that went into making that garment.” Even today, after half a century in the UK, my mother doesn’t throw clothes away. For her, and many like her, disposability is an anathema.

The Seventh Generation Principle, rooted in Indigenous thought, teaches us to weigh decisions against their impacts seven generations ahead. It calls us to stewardship over ownership, responsible resource management, and care over consumption. Yet today, in the era of fast, mass, disposable, consumption – which includes ‘luxury’ brands too – we have built a different legacy: enough clothing to clothe the next six generations.

Let that sink in.

If we halted production now, future generations could still be well-dressed for the next 400 years (assuming an 80-year lifespan). In 2019, in London alone, residents discarded 157,300 tonnes of clothing – an average of 44 items per person. What’s more, today’s clothing, unlike its predecessors, is largely made from petrochemicals: minerals formed over millions of years, extracted in months, worn for a season. A polyester tank top: a geological marvel reduced to summer wear. These garments cannot return to the soil as enrichment – they are forever cast out of Earth from which they came. This is a true severing of a primordial link, if there ever was one.

Well, that depends on how far we can trace this fundamentally systemic change in world view. If we take a bird’s eye view of the proliferation of ideas at scale, that transformed nature as inextricable co-partner, to a ‘resource’, the Enlightenment – an intellectual and philosophical movement started in the seventeenth century in Europe – is one seminal turning of the wheel. In a backdrop of political and cultural turmoil (sound familiar?), the Enlightenment emerged as a counter-narrative, elevating reason and the scientific method above embodied wisdom and knowledge. The assumption was that this new paradigm would result in greater progress, and the betterment of humankind. In this worldview, nature was no longer kin, but resource – something to dominate and subjugate. Specific to clothing and fashion, technological advances came through thick and fast – James Hargreaves's spinning-jenny (1764), Richard Arkwright with his water-frame (1768) and Samuel Crompton with his mule (1779) applied technology to the mass production of cloth by steam-driven machines. A radical reframing of local, artisan, slow-by-nature garment creation, to mass industrialisation therefore occurred. To sustain this model, people were persuaded that novelty – fueled by consumption – was the new normal.

Fast forward a few lifetimes, and we have the Atacama Desert spotted with mounds of discarded fashion, shipped in from across the globe, from fast fashion behemoths including H&M and Marks & Spencer. Or we can move across to Ghana, where the beaches of Accra are suffocating under the mass dumping of discarded fashion shipped from European countries, under the guise of recycled clothing programmes. In reality, this is an outsourcing of disposable fashion, to a continent that did not ask to be the world’s unofficial waste bin.

Today, many of us are reckoning with what was rejected in the name of modernity, that is now causing our collective dis-ease. Stories of human supremacy are unraveling under the weight of ecological grief; ideas of what we make, how we make it and why we need to care more are being interrogated by a generation that can see that the story of human dominance is causing harm at a planetary scale.

My own journey in the domains of design and storytelling has evolved significantly over time, in lock-step with a growing inner, and outer, consciousness. My creative practice – per se – has had many iterations. I have personally created and launched two brands – one in outerwear, and one more broadly in product design, so the intricacies of making in ways that are conscious and creatively fulfilling are lived lessons for me. I actively closed down my first brand in 2015, in response to an industry that was demanding too many collections, too much speed, too much disposability. Little did I know nearly a decade later, the making and craft of clothing would again occupy me with renewed intent: to honour slow craft, regenerative materials and ancestral knowledge in a 21st century way of life. This has been my experience in the universe of The Lissome. Founded by creative director and design consultant Dörte de Jesus, funnily enough in 2015 also, what started as a blog exploring the burgeoning world of lower-impact fashion, is now a global community dedicated to poetic storytelling, academic rigor and conscious creativity and craft. 

As host of the podcast, Weaving Beings, Conversations with The Lissome, I receive first-hand an education on the extraordinary futures that are unfolding now, in the worlds of fashion making and beyond – from Dr Amy Twigger Holroyd’s ‘Fashion Fictions’ project, that helps us imagine other possible fashion cultures and systems, to photographer Andrés Altamirano going back to the land of his forebears to give an insight into the Wisdom of the Andes. We are in a moment of beautiful potential.

The power of story, which drives my own work, is one key unlock if we are to enact the transformations needed, to bring about a new chapter of collective flourishing. Systemic issues, from extractive supply chains and human rights violations to ecological destruction and loss of traditions, need to be faced head on, but even deeper is the need to re-orient ourselves within a bigger story of interconnectedness. No individual species, mammal, plant, seed can survive, let alone thrive, in isolation. This journey back to ourselves, the re-enchantment with a larger play of life, is needed at this time. 

“It’s so beautiful that we actually have access to many different relationships with other beings. Life is not about asking ourselves: ‘What can you do for me?’ but about living in reciprocity, in the way of bringing gifts. That ultimately leads to an enchantment because we understand that life is not about transactions. It’s about having the chance to connect to something that is mysterious and larger than ourselves.” Dörte de Jesus

Alongside Indigenous elders holding ancestral stewardship, a new generation of designers and craftspeople are shaping cloth making and garment design in ways that honour ecology, community and craft. In many cases, depending on where we were born and the cultures in which we were raised, these ideas may feel new, but in fact they are simply new to us. What is being asked of us in this moment is not radical newness, but the wisdom to recognise what needs to be retrieved from the refuse pile of three hundred years of industrial proliferation. The spirit of this reconnection to synergistic ways of living is also about parsing through the present-day harms of fashion, while accessing a nuanced appreciation of what benefits the modern age has afforded us; the mindset is one of “no to this, not everything.”

Textile Seekers is a digital platform that honours the wisdom of ancient traditions, ones that the bearers of are keen to sustain too, in ways that are mindful, respectful and in the right relation with the land. In place of fast, single-use, disposable consumption, slow, considered, joyful creativity is finding a new voice, and audience, through product design, conscious travel and evocative storytelling. Another symbiotic merging of modernity and tradition is the brainchild of Alice Bernardo and Miguel Barbot – Saber Fazer – a loci of research, training, workshops and product, to help preserve and strengthen the ecosystem of local Portuguese natural textile fibres and farm-to-cloth production.

Reconnecting people, to place, through fibre, is key. This is not a return to the past, but rather a restoration of relationships severed by hyper-individualism.

As well as creating spaces for gathering and knowledge exchange, independent, slow fashion and craft brands are leading the change. Take BUNON which translates to ‘weaving’ in Bengali and brings together the cultures of India and Japan. Its silk textiles – entirely handmade and embodying a slow craft tradition that has lasted for over 1,300 years – are made from hand-spun yarn derived from wild silkworms that reside in the local forests. Or the exquisite work of Kristína Sipulová, who is keeping artisanal practices alive with the aid of craftswomen near her hometown in rural Slovakia.

Craft may well be on its way to being re-centred in our daily lives, but the way we assign value to materials is arbitrary and also needs reframing. Some are seen as waste or ‘unprofitable’; others, as aspirational. This is faulty logic. If we look at our ecological systems, waste does not exist; processes of creation, maintenance and decomposition exist in a closed loop of continuous renewal. Humans, with their misplaced ingenuity in the creation of synthetic fibres for mass consumption, made materials that do not enfold back into the soil to provide regeneration for the next generation of growth.

But solutions exist here too, waiting to be retrieved.

Take hemp: versatile, resilient, water-saving and pesticide-free. It’s a material with deep ecological intelligence. Contemporary Hempery at Wakelyns Farm is committed to re-engaging this wunderkind material, aiming to revive the growing of hemp for textile in the UK. Responsibly sourced cotton is also now gaining momentum, as are other more experimental ‘bio-based materials’ such as mycelium or firmly traditional fibres including flax.

Organisations like Fibershed, originating in the US but now with strong chapters across Europe and in the UK including Southwest Fibreshed, are reweaving local fibre economies from the soil up too. As a non-profit it partners with farmers to promote climate-beneficial agriculture, natural dye systems and regional manufacturing. This is not nostalgia, it is necessary evolution. It’s also about creating a rich ecosystem of collaboration – our farming systems are in as acute a state of dysregulation as our fashion systems; many of our ways of living are up for re-negotiation because again, without everything, we do not have anything.

As the harms of extractive fashion become harder to ignore – pollution, overproduction, labour exploitation – we can also become smarter in the questions we ask. Could we, for instance, adopt a rule of time: the longer it takes to form, the longer it should last? Polyester takes millennia to make; should we discard it after a few wears? Choosing regenerative practices over extractive ones, honouring land and material stewardship and long-term thinking are no longer niche, they are essential.

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In the myth that opens this piece, with so much of her crafted beauty now in sorrowful shreds, the old woman begins again. Her hands, seasoned and steady, weave new visions into the next cloak, more intricate than before. She doesn’t rush. She listens to the threads. Her slowness is not weakness; it is wisdom.

We, too, stand at a threshold. Among the tangled mess of modernity lies the potential for something exquisite. Are we willing to reweave a world rooted in relationships? To remake what was unravelled? To honour what was once deemed disposable?

This is not about starting over. It is about re-membering what we already know; thread by thread, story by story.

See perse.london for more on the extensive work and research of Hardeep Kaur.
Now read the BRiMM piece on: How a New 
Food System Can Heal Us and The Planet