Liberation Skirt - Monique van Gent Sidy

Liberation Concept

In striving to become independent from corrupt clothing manufacturing corporations, I want to create a skirt:

that is beautiful;
the fabrics are re-used (upcycled);
the process of creating colors to the garment does not add to pollution of the earth.
Each panel of the skirt is dyed by a plant that grows in our yard or around it.
Each plant has a story. “Plants are indelible storytellers.” Sasha Duerr
Plant stories: a silkscreened print or part of the plant from which the color came. Silkscreen ink made from a botanical ink I make from plant in the yard.
Plant stories: Written/embroidered name/place/meaning or traditional story of plant.
I will do the sewing by hand. Human creative energy.
I want to honor the local Indigenous People who have used dyes from plants in many ways and for many ages. I learned the basics from one of them.
I want to honor the people who have been picking cotton under the worst of circumstances, including slavery.
The person wearing the skirt will be celebrating the concept of emerging from darkness to light: the victories, the gifts, the beauty, the goodness, and the creativity of Nature.

What I aim to Achieve with the Skirt

The garment/fashion industry has one of the largest carbon footprints on the globe. It hugely overexploits natural resources, causes immense pollution during the process from farm to final product people get from the store racks. The production of garments contributes to health problems from massive use of toxic chemicals and pesticides (hugely poisonous and wasteful dyeing processes), waste water releases to the ocean, destruction of ecosystems, exploitation and oppression of farmers and of workers and factory workers/seamstresses and the transportation to warehouses and stores.

The garment industry is a large player in the affairs of human rights and fair trade, international development, fashion’s ecological impacts and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs, a collection of 17 global goals set by the United Nations General Assembly to be achieved by 2030). The manufacturing of garments need to strongly consider environmental protection, responsible production and sustainable consumption.

Most garments are not even worn are than once! …

“These days, more than 60% of our wearable fabric fibers are synthetic, derived from fossil fuels, and not designed to last in quality or style. That’s completely unnecessary, and I’d love to challenge that narrative. When I’m in my studio, even though it’s such a small scale, I dream about changing how we consider the way we clothe ourselves, the values we hold as a society, and the opportunities that surround us we haven’t taken the time to explore.” — Mary Diaz

There’s also another possible benefit of taking care to create garments. Our skins are the largest organ of our bodies. When we cover our skin with fabrics that are dyed with toxic chemicals, we slowly allow our skin to absorb these poisons. Wearing a garment that is dyed with plants – and specifically medicinal plants – the garment can help heal or keep healthy the wearer. The fabrics also can be infused with scents – such as those from herbs or fruits and wild plants.

Perhaps this Liberation Skirt will help making people aware of the devastating social, environmental, and health costs of mass-marketed clothing.

SKIRT STORY

The skirt will have pieces of fabric that show the story of their source. How?

For example, on each of the panels of the fabrics in the skirt, I will experiment with writing to show what plants or flowers were used to dyeing these fabrics. I will experiment with designing flower/plant stamps with dye that immersed that panel piece. Each of these plants has a history and human tradition, often meaningful as a life with a name and a purpose within Nature and the greater world. (Ethnobotany)

Skirt Design Concept

A plant seed presses through layers of darkness, but it uses these to come out and create a plant. This same idea needs to be remembered while we struggle through the utter darkness in the world to push our visions and dreams for the good of all.

The skirt design has darker layers at the bottom of the skirt, getting lighter to the top of the skirt, as the seed presses its stem and leaves to the top.

The skirt would look like an opening flower – the focus is Nature

Proposed colors adapted to the skirt:

The plant dyes have been used in different concentrations and durations.

Each of the colors of the skirts have stories. The stories come from the plants with which the fabric pieces were dyed. These plants are:

Mexican Marigold (Tagetes lemmonii)
Snake weed/Rabbit Brush (Gutierrezia sarothrae)
Coreopsis
Yarrow
Chaparral

It is interesting that, as I make the colors for the skirt, I cannot totally decide what these colors will be, because at different times, different plants offer their colors. So I am listening to the plants to see what and when they are offering, and letting me accept their gifts.

This makes me realize that this listening to what is right here around me is a way of limiting the infinite choices we have that can be overwhelming to a creative maker. It is also a challenge of balancing what I want to create is not just me – it is what is being offered in the yard, helping me decide on the colors.

In addition to plants, I use water in which old copper pipe and iron nails have been soaking for long time.

Warning Frame for Social Distancing

To be responsible to others, the skirt will have a warning frame about 2 feet all around, to protect people by keeping distance in case the wearer of the skirt is asymptomatic for COVID-19. This frame is to be separate and sown into some kind of a petticoat that could be worn in social distancing, but taken off when not necessary. (To be more protective, I am considering designing a jacket with a hoop on the shoulders.)

A soft wire frame will be part of the design. I’m thinking long twigs from Squawbush that grows in our garden.

Process

Will use fabrics that were dyed with plants from our garden in Sedona, Arizona.

Mexican Marigold