This exhibition is part of the Gawthorpe Textiles Collection Ethical Textiles community project funded by the National Lottery Reaching

Communities Fund.

The exhibition was inspired by pieces in the Gawthorpe Textiles Collection on the theme of trees and woodlands. We also took inspiration from The Queen’s Green Canopy, a unique tree planting initiative created to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022.

“Green Canopy” evokes images of textiles as protection - cloaks, garments, tents, and shelters. Trees provide a green covering and habitat for other plants, insects, molluscs, birds, and animals, as well as providing food, fruit, shelter, and warmth for people. “Green” is also a reference to the ideas of conservation, ecology and sustainability which are so relevant to the theme of Ethical Textiles.

The current National Trust Plant a Tree initiative highlights the importance of trees in the fight to counteract climate change: “Trees breathe life into our world.”

Trees are an important part of the landscape around Gawthorpe Hall and there is at least one ancient Beech tree in the grounds. Woods and forests often feature in folklore and literature. Trees have been given deep and sacred meanings by people throughout history and are often seen as powerful symbols of growth, death, and rebirth. The Tree of Life motif appears in several pieces in the Collection including a set of bed hangings made by Collection founder Rachel Kay-Shuttleworth. The Tree of Life is recognised by cultures all over the world and often relates to myths that connect the earth and the heavens and symbolise creation, fertility, life and death.

The work displayed has been produced by members of the local community in Lancashire, including members of Gawthorpe Textiles Collection’s Sew Social group at Valley Street Communtiy Centre. The group meet twice a week to work on textile projects, socialise and make friends. Other pieces have been produced by young people as part of the Re: Fashion Challenge and embroiderers who worked on the British Textile Biennial Collateral project.

What do we mean by Ethical Textiles?

Textile production that aims to have a positive impact on people, animals and the planet.

Ethical fashion is about designing and making clothes in a way that considers people and their communities but reduces the impact on the

environment.

The Fashion and Textiles industry is one of the most polluting and unsustainable industries on the planet. Fast Fashion has become a by word for cheap clothes but at what cost to the environment and to workers in the garment industry at home and abroad? What are the alternatives? What can local communities do to make a difference? Is “Slow Fashion” affordable for the average person?

Our Ethical Textiles project is equipping local communities in Burnley and East Lancashire with the skills and knowledge to make ethical and environmentally sustainable choices.

Learning from the past, preserving craft skills, learning to repair and preserve items, developing and sourcing local products, understanding and using eco-friendly materials are all ways that we can help to protect the environment and present a different view of the value and cost of the clothes that we wear, the textiles we buy and the associated industries. 

“Slow fashion values the craft that goes into our clothes. It repositions each garment from a throwaway commodity to an item to be treasured. It takes lessons from before this time of fast fashion and questions whether the convenient choice is always the best choice.”

Emma Matthews, How to Quit Fast Fashion. Welbeck, London, 2020)

The Environmental audit Committee states that 3,000,000 tons of clothing ends up in household bins every year, with 20% of that going into landfill and the other 80% burned. £140 million worth of garments are being trashed in the UK alone. It is no wonder that the UK is seen as the epicentre of fast fashion in Europe.

Gawthorpe Textiles Collection are keen to promote the values of slow fashion, making and craft. Our aim is to help people to make ethical and environmentally sustainable fashion choices. Using our collection of textiles as inspiration to learn from a time before fast fashion to begin to value the craftwork that goes into our fashion items, we aim to reposition each garment from a throwaway commodity to an item to be treasured.

In August 2021 we ran a Re: Fashion Challenge with a group of young people from across East Lancashire in collaboration with the University of Central Lancashire. Working with four young fashion design graduates as mentors, the participants created collections of recycled, upcycled or refashioned garments using deadstock fabric, discarded items and pieces from local charity shops.

Each mentor worked with a group of young people to create a collection on a different creative theme: Punk Princess, The Great Outdoors, Gombiako and Botanical Bin Liner. 

What can you do as an individual to change the fashion industry from fast fashion to slow fashion?

The UK Parliament published a report in February 2019 into the Fashion industry called Fixing Fashion. One of their conclusions is that the most sustainable garment is the one we already own and that repairing, rewearing, reusing and renting are preferable to recycling or discarding clothes.

Three ways to make a difference:

1. Give your old clothes away to friends or to charity shops but remember only a third of donations actually are resold. The rest go into landfill so only donate high quality clothes.

2. Recycle and repurpose. Learn to repair and reuse. Colourful and creative patching and darning can make your clothes original and different. If they are too damaged to repair, make them into quilts or rugs or other products.

3. Swap your clothes. Organise a one-off event or set up a clothing exchange where people can bring something and take something away.