Imagining Possibilities
We are presenting our new print edition, Love Ethic, at Centre for Sustainable Fashion’s Imagining Possibilities Festival in London on April 19, and would love you to join us – in person or from afar.
Hello everyone, this is the first Lissome Letter that I am sending you via Substack. I’ve recently really enjoyed discovering this platform (while setting up Slow Style Chronicle), getting to know the additional features it allows for (such as easily adding sound and video clips, the more personal look & feel, the promise of more community interaction), and the discovery of other beautifully unique, weird and wonderful publications that I am planning to share with you from time to time.
But let’s start with the aforementioned invitation:
In Conversation: Life in Clothes and The Lissome
We are presenting our new edition, Love Ethic, in London on April 19 (from 5-9 pm) as part of Centre for Sustainable Fashion’s Imagining Possibilities Festival at LCF’s new home at East Bank, and you can get your free ticket here.
It’s going to be a cosy evening of conversation (followed by a drinks’ reception) between Dr. Mila Burcikova of Centre for Sustainable Fashion and me, hosted by Hardeep Kaur (Weaving Beings: Conversations with The Lissome and The Architecture of Contemplation podcasts), and accompanied by Mila’s exhibition Life in Clothes and the presentation of our new print editions, where you have the chance to browse through and purchase a copy in person.
We will talk about re-connecting with natural seasons through Mila’s Life in Clothes Almanac, nature-based narratives for fashion in an article and photo story published in The Lissome and inspired by Mila’s research, and The Lissome’s vision of conscious creation in divisive times.
It’s our first in-person event in what feels like forever and ages, and I hope you can make it! If you’d like to attend, you can register via this link. And even if you are not in London, you can join us from afar as the event will also be live-streamed online. So all very happy and exciting news!
To give you a bit more context, Dr. Mila Burcikova is a designer, maker, and researcher at Centre for Sustainable Fashion, London College of Fashion. Life in Clothes is her three-year research project on the interconnections and parallels between fashion-making and farming practices, and you can read about and delve into her world visually in the new edition of The Lissome (get your copy here).
The Life in Clothes Almanac is Mila’s micro-scenario for a deeper understanding of fashion and agriculture at the smallest end of the scale – designer-maker practice and gardening. Drawing on historical farmer’s almanacs, following the flow of seasons in her studio and the gardens attached to it, Mila explores how fashion centres and priorities are shifted when fashion is truly grounded in nature and a rural space. As in her words:
If you’d like to dive deeper into her work, you can listen to a fascinating conversation with her and podcast host, Hardeep Kaur, in the newly released second episode of Weaving Beings – Conversations with The Lissome:
“A better system will not automatically ensure a better life. In fact, the
opposite is true: only by creating a better life can a better system be created.” – Vaclav Havel, The Power of the Powerless, 1978
In this episode, we learn about Mila’s journey as a maker and academic in the field of sustainable fashion, her current research project, Life in Clothes, the role of time and cyclical patterns of nature in sustainable living, and the unique story behind Mila’s feature in The Lissome. Here is a short clip:
Below, you can listen to the full episode. If you enjoy the conversation, we would be so grateful if you could help us spread the word about these important ideas by leaving a 5-star review and share it with your friends or colleagues – this really makes such a huge difference for the podcast to get discovered by other podcast lovers and listeners, and we’d really appreciate it!
How to Order Your Copy of The Lissome No.4
The Lissome is an indispensable guide for artisanal crafts, material culture, sustainability expertise and system thinking in fashion and beyond. Its timeless and beautiful content and haptics makes it a valuable, enduring reference.
You can order the magazine directly via our online store. Simply follow this link.
Lissome Loves
Things that I enjoyed this week:
Jack Johnstone created this cute, happy video to celebrate our new print issue:
These gorgeous location images that Reeme Idris posted of Charleston in Firle:
Watching the How to find joy in climate action TED talk by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and learning about her practical and powerful suggestion of drawing a Venn diagram to identify our unique – and joyful – contributions to positive climate action by mapping these questions: “What are you good at? What is the work that needs doing? And what brings you joy?” Her new book, What If We Get It Right? Visions of Climate Futures, is published in September.
Ciao for now and much love!
Dörte x
This issue is beautiful 💛