This text is a rewriting of the artistic research project Seven Shirts included in the licentiate dissertation Repetition Recur¬rence Return (Lundstedt 2021). In this text, I further describe the exploration of the project in which seven slowly made shirts were worn for 49 days as an everyday performance, to not get lost in the interesting and new, but to force the clothes to be kept in active use.
The article and project explore the experience of time when making seven shirts by hand to put attention to the accelerating speed of fashion and expand the definition of the concept of Slow in fashion design. Handling waste as well as using natural dye in the process has been important to explore imperfection as a design possibility and then challenge the way we look at garments and fashion that often has a sterile and spotless expression.
Wearing has been a part of the process and was intended to be slow and like a ritual with the expectation of creating a relationship with each garment. The purpose of wearing the same kind of garment for 49 days in a row was about paying attention to something, time and adaptation. There is a stigma around how often one can use the same garment which means that being able to wear the same item this many times requires strength. The social aspects of wearing were sometimes hard to challenge and thus wearing each of the seven shirts for seven days had to be performed. The time spent with the shirts by making and wearing them created a relationship and together with active noticing I could embrace boredom and that created new meanings and relief.