The Aesthetic of Use: Asian Innovations
By Kei Yong
In an Asian developing country such as where I'm from, spotting a good, trendy thrift store or similar local start-up is a challenge compared with the range you can find strolling down the street in cities like London or New York. While it always feels incredible when you do manage to find a rare score, when it comes to sustainable fashion, sometimes you have to forget secondhand and instead resort to your needle and thread and make do with what you already have.
The ‘aesthetic of use’ is a celebration of the wear and tear on your garments that comes with a sense of appreciation of your clothes through extensive use. This isn’t exactly a revolutionary concept; underground sub-culture groups like punk in the '80s have in the past purposefully distressed pieces and borrowed items like safety pins to hold fabrics together, creating an effect that rebels against pristine aesthetics and other fashion conventions. This trend has more recently become prominent among young, independent brands in Southeast Asia (SEA) who study what was considered an unconventional trend of the past, but now with their own cultural spin.
Getting bored of those old jeans at the back of your closet? Indonesian brand CTRL+N embraces patchworking with Japanese sashiko stitching to mend and upcycle their utility and denim wear, creating perfectly imperfect designs that add that little bit of fun individuality.
Got an annoying hole that needs patching? FIN Crafted Goods, a Singaporean start-up with the motto mottainai, or a desire to avoid waste, recycles and mends workwear, embrace the beauty of deterioration and in pieces like these:
If you consider yourself into cool patterns, why not buy yourself a tie-dye, cyanotype, or lino print kit this Christmas to jazz up that white bed sheet of yours and make a cool co-ord set? Pinoy brand TOQA’s lookbook serves as a great source of inspiration for patterns that are reminiscent of the beauty of Mother Nature herself so that you can start planning early and get your summer outfits all in order.
I’m not necessarily suggesting that you should embrace that little armpit hole in your T-shirt, or get your scissors into every piece or garment that you scorn, but hopefully designers like these, and the culturally-shared mindset behind them, will inspire your next mending project and perhaps encourage you to embrace the little, everyday imperfections of your clothing.
Happy upcycling!
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