How can creativity and transformation feed new life and worth into second-hand clothes? 

University of Chester students in BA Fashion Design and BA Photography, have collaborated with local charity shops Save The Children and ShareShop to design and photograph a sustainable fashion collection, upcycling used textiles from clothing donations and exhibiting them in the charity shop windows in the Chester city centre.  

Make, Mend and Sustain was conceived as part of Open Eye Gallery’s ongoing research on Climate Change for the LOOK Photo Biennial 2022. The project started as a response to The Slum Studios, a Ghanian textile brand that was part of Open Eye’s exhibition “Follow the River, Follow the Thread”. The Slum Studio highlights global issues related to over consumption and fashion waste by creating wearable art from the discarded clothing inundating Ghana’s second-hand markets. Visiting the exhibition and learning about the work helped provide a starting point for University of Chester students to initiate their own projects, translating the global message of The Slum Studio into the local context of Chester charity shops.

The students started by building a relationship with the two local charities to understand how they operate, learn about their key objectives, and integrate this into the design of the garments and collection. Following initial meetings and visits with both charities, the students joined the volunteering team to help out in a donations sorting day. This was an opportunity for fashion students to collect textile materials to use in their designs and for photography students to document the unseen work and journey behind the distribution of donated clothing. 

In the next stage of the project, the students reworked the second hand textiles into new vibrant garments. Photography students captured the creative process, from hand painting on textiles, to trousers made from duvet covers. The finished pieces were photographed in a fashion photoshoot staged at the charity shops involved, ShareShop and Save The Children, and in ShareAid’s donations distribution center in Mold. By bringing the garments back to their point of donation, the images visually narrate the journey the materials had been through. Both the final designs and photographs were exhibited in the high street facing windows of the charity shops as part of Open Eye Gallery’s festival LOOK Photo Biennial 2022: Climate. 

The outcome of Make, Mend & Sustain shows us how creativity can  extend the life of your clothes as an act of kindness to our planet. Living sustainably is about starting to take more care with the materials we consume, and to ask questions as to where they come from, and where they go. The journey and story behind the work of the University of Chester’s students aims to change habits and inspire confidence in the way that everyone can introduce a change in their lives, which is mindful of waste, sustainability and climate change. 

The work of the students listed below was coordinated by course leaders for Fashion Design and Photography, Delphine Wilson and Cian Quayle respectively, with visiting staff Jen John and Aj Wilkinson, in conjunction with Diane Hamilton, and Núria Rovira Terradas at the Open Eye Gallery.

Charity Shop Collection by Rebecca Parker, Annie Dinis, Jamie Flint, Saviour Jaffier, Kerrigan Collins, Natasha Rowland, Marta Castro Permuy, Louise Morgan, Jessica Rimmer, Sophie Pomfrey, Diane Maccabe, and Katriona Heritage.

Photography by Simon Hyde, Charlie Harris, Emily Johnson and Anna Carter

Models: Tyler and Bernice. 

Thanks to Save the Children and Share Shop for their generous support and access to their donations. 

The work is on display in Save the Children, 9 Grosvenor St, Chester, CH1 2DD and Share Shop, 50 Northgate St, Chester, CH1 2HA.

Cover image: Simon Hyde