A project about behavior change set by design agency Thomas Matthews. This was done with Lisa Stewwy and Miss Jessica Knowles.

Stitch Don't Ditch - The Washing Line Project from Lisa Claire Stewart on Vimeo.

"Be the change you want to see in the world."

We wanted to encourage people to re-use and re-invent their clothing preventing further consumption of cheap textiles. Waste is a big issue; we believe that so many people are buying excessively and that they don’t appreciate their belongings. We discovered that there were huge environmental and social impacts made by the fashion and textile industry. We felt that this was a worthy cause and that we could start a small change that would eventually change the shape of this industry and the future. By encouraging people to repair, swap and re-invent their clothes we hope that if our campaign grew it could directly impact the amount of textile waste created.

Stitch Don’t Ditch is aimed at the general public but we hope that it appeals more to younger generations who buy into disposable fashion and fast fashion trends. We want people to get creative and re-invent and repair their clothes or even swap clothes ultimately not contributing to the ever-growing hole in the ground. We created the Stitch Don’t Ditch campaign which advertises our on-going online project to encourage people to throw away less. The project runs on two online platforms, we have a facebook group with over 200 members and a blog. The facebook group is about connecting people who have similar interests and is where any events for example clothes swaps and sewing lessons can be advertised. The facebook page also showcases the live campaigns and directs people to our blogger. On the blog we aim to give people advise, inspiration and ideas on what they can do with unwanted garments.

To visualise the facts we screen-printed them on to garments, which were donated to us. Our campaign runs on both a public and private scale to draw attention to the widest possible audience. With screen printed t-shirt’s in hand we sneeked into peoples back gardens and left them a mysterious surprise message. The t-shirt featured a shocking fact and was left with a tag detailing the Stitch Don’t Ditch project and promoting the blog by telling the audience to log on to the blog for ideas on what to do with the t-shirt. In Truro we bought the campaign to a larger public scale using the washing line installation. We hung up a washing line of colourful, screen printed t-shirts above a subway, which turned a lot of heads and got a lot of people talking. We gave out postcards and mini sewing kits to passers by who showed interest in the project. We received so much positive feedback from a wide demographic audience.

In this modern age not many people know how to sew and repair their clothing or simply can’t be bothered! We hope that through our blog and events we can educate people on this topic. We designed and made sewing kits, which we hope gives people an incentive to repair their clothes. We made a larger sewing kit aswell, which features a variety of sewing essentials. The sewing kits would be promoted through our blog.