Stephen Thompson, a designer in Mississippi in the southern United States, has put together a fascinating forecast of design trends for 2009. His conclusion: “If there is one overall theme coming for 2009, it might best be called SlowTec - a simple back-to-basics style that is all about less speed for better living - and a focus on quality craftsmanship and eco consciousness.”

Underneath this lovely slow umbrella, Thompson predicts lots of global influences, patchwork, rich color, wood, vintage items, and snowflakes, among other trends.  And though Thompson doesn’t talk about scale, maybe Sarah Susanka’s dream of the Not-So-Big-House will finally take hold, making all those mega-mansions suddenly appear as ridiculous and embarassing as we always suspected they were. Most of these design trends will fit perfectly in a human-scaled, size-appropriate dwelling.

In yesterday’s London TimesOnline: “Disposable Fashion: For Sale, Hardly Worn, Two Million Tonnes of Clothes.” (I found this link via Linda Grant’s The Thoughtful Dresser.) From the article:

Instead of two annual seasons for clothes - winter and summer - we are now offered, and can afford, new apparel every few weeks. We buy fresh holiday wardrobes, which we wear for a fortnight. Our style icons are celebrities who are never seen in the same outfit twice. And as our high street stores reel from the credit crunch, still we are cashing in - packing out the shops, desperate for discounted clothes.

As a result, textiles have become the fastest-growing waste product in the UK. About 74 per cent of those two million tonnes of clothes we buy each year end up in landfills, rotting slowly (or not at all) in a mass of polyester, viscose and acrylic blends.

Slow fashion has always been something Europeans excelled at — choosing high-quality, well-fitting basics to last for many years, and accessorizing them for variety and color and self-expression — and something we Americans have envied. It’s time to rediscover this approach to fashion. The TimesOnline article is a fascinating look at what happens to all the cheap, poorly made clothing that doesn’t get sold, or gets thrown away the minute it outlives its trendiness.

The environmental and social ills of the textile industry are enormous, and must be fixed, yet they are so invisible to most of us in the West that we’ve been able to ignore them and indulge an endless appetite for more clothes, helped by marketing, advertising and media that make us feel inadequate unless we can fill a closet the size of many apartments. Historically, though, the best-dressed people, the most chic and interesting and spirited, don’t dress that way.  It’s time to move toward smart, slow and sustainable fashion.

The slow movement has been ahead of its time for years, ironically, but the world is finally catching up. A global economic meltdown just might get us to stop grasping for cheap, fast and easy, or oversized and expensive,  and wake up to authentic experiences rooted in creativity, community, and soul. So it seems like the perfect time for this blog, and I thank Carl for the invitation to post.

I’ve been working out my own definition of “slow” for textiles and cloth for about a year now on Red Thread Studio, my blog. I was inspired by Slow Food, the first part of the slow movement to be codified –  its rejection of the mass-produced, cheap, anonymous and ubiquitous and its embrace of history, regional origins and differences, skill, community and nourishment. Slow Food doesn’t have to take a long time to cook, but it does require making more space in your life for a relationship with food, a greater consciousness and respect for the choices we have.

These are the ephemeral qualities that I think translate to the world of cloth. Textile traditions and techniques need preserving and protecting. Skills that used to be handed down, most often from mother to daughter,  are in danger of extinction, replaced by an endless cycle of conspicuous consumption, disposable and forgettable choices, and outsourced production. We don’t know where our textiles come from, any more than our food; we don’t know whose hands shaped them, or designed their beauty, or stitched their warmth.

I’m lucky to have a lifelong and ongoing experience of making things with fabric. My hands, my senses and my imagination have explored the full range of the art-craft arc, and found immense satisfaction at every point on that arc. For a good part of my life, these activities were, let’s say, less than cool. People would comment that they’d love to make things too if they, you know, had time in their busy and important lives. That’s missing the point. If the process of making things wasn’t  hugely satisfying and fun for me, I would never do it.

Today it’s popular and even cool once again to make things, yet much of today’s “Craft 2.0”movement seems to succumb to fast principles: How can we make it quick, cheap, easy, and skip over all the hard part of learning how to do it well?

So I offer a different approach, and I’ve identified 10 qualities that I think characterize Slow Cloth. You can have a Slow Cloth sensibility as an individual artist or artisan or as a commercial company, and it bears repeating that “slow” is not literal. More than once, I’ve found myself emphasizing that slow cloth (or fashion, or design, or craft) has nothing to do with whether or not your creative work is done by hand or machine, or how long it takes to complete. Instead, the thread that runs through all these qualities is the idea of authenticity, one of those know-it-when-you-see-it things that is as vital as it is indefinable.

Slow Cloth:

1. Has the possibility of joy in the process. I often hear people say that they think they should learn to knit or sew, because they think they will save money or that it’s somehow virtuous. Nonsense. Everybody should know how to sew on a button or mend a seam, but beyond that, if you don’t love the process, there isn’t much point. In other words, it’s the journey, not the destination. If efficiency and sameness are the primary goals, it’s not Slow Cloth.
2. Can be contemplative. Not every moment of making is a serene mystical precious experience, but the totality of your work opens space for you and gives you room to think, to breathe, and to be.
3. Involves skill and has the possibility of mastery. Rather than choosing easy or instant-gratification methods (craft kits!), you’re aiming for originality, and an ever-expanding level of fluency and grace in the techniques you work with.
4. Acknowledges the rich diversity and multicultural history of textile art and craft. Textiles express culture and we live in a fantastically big and small world. Slow Cloth celebrates that diversity rather than eliminating it.
5. Honors its teachers and lineage. Most of us began to learn our skills with cloth from an ancestor or friend,  and there are many generations before us who used their inventiveness and creativity to expand possibilities in the world of cloth. Thank them and pay it forward.
6. Uses materials thoughtfully and respects their sources. Remember that it takes a lot of people and energy to make your fabric or yarn or dye, or the clothing you sell, and maintain an ethical and environmental perspective.  I don’t think everything has to be organic or even natural – some of my favorite textile artists, like Mary Ruth Smith, use some synthetics — but be mindful of your footprint and choose well and appropriately.
7. Honors quality. We want to make things that last and are well-made.
8. Honors beauty. Beauty is a whole complicated and wonderful subject all its own. I believe we have an innate need for beauty that’s driven us to make decorative textiles for many thousands of years.
9. Supports and encourages community. A Slow Cloth company respects all of its labor force; a textile artist or artisan acknowledges a relationship to other. We share knowledge, preserve history and legacy, and help our neighbors. Our skills give us common ground and a place to connect; it was as true for ancient weavers in the courtyard or 19th century pioneers at a quilting bee as it is on modern knitting forums and textile blogs on the Internet.
10. Is expressive of individuals or cultures (or both). The human creative force is reflected and evident in the work. Cloth is a language that can communicate values, myths, ideals, dreams, status.

As we develop this sensibility, our overall relationship to textiles changes and deepens. Your comments are welcome!