Sarah Richards & Eleanor Tull
This week it is International Women’s Day! We are ending our blog series with a celebration of Eleanor Tull and Sarah Richards, facilitators of our Fast Fashion Therapy workshops!
Eleanor Tull and Sarah Richards - Workshop Facilitators
Fast fashion therapy & the create place
Fast Fashion therapy normally runs on the 2nd and 4th Monday of the month in the Create Place. It is our go-to workshop for the community to learn how to be more ethical and sustainable with their fashion choices. By learning how to mend, fit, remake, and revamp clothes we already own, we can all help prevent as much textile items going to landfill.
Sarah and Eleanor are both involved in the textile and fashion industries in their own right. Sarah founded the independent vintage fabric shop Olive Road London. Eleanor is a textile designer and artist who focuses on finding innovative uses for textile industrial waste. Together they have developed a workshop where people can quickly pick up sewing skills, where attendees have usually mended or altered at least one item of clothing by the end! It might seem daunting at first but everyone is happy to have rescued their their favourite item of clothing from the bin!
Sarah and Eleanor have been working at the Create Place since August 2018. They were both passionate about sharing sewing and mending skills with people to help them approach fashion more sustainably and have more confidence in looking after their clothes. Having both lived locally and come to St Margaret’s House for other events and activities they were familiar with the Create Place and both felt it was the obvious choice for a workshop. Although they began facilitating individually, they soon joined forces.
“It’s such a collaborative and encouraging space to hold workshops in and FFT would not have made it this far without [the Create Place]” - Eleanor
“The space has such a friendly feel to it with the added bonus of having sewing equipment to hand.” adds Sarah, “[it’s] great as we both can bring different skill sets to the workshops and enjoy working together.”
They both look back, fondly, at the last in-person sessions they held in February 2020 when the workshops were the busiest they’d ever been.
There were as many people as physically possible working around the big table, sharing materials and equipment and ideas with each other on how to fix their sewing problems.
“It seems like a different life after the last year, but those were exactly the kind of workshops I came to the Create Place to run.“ - Eleanor
“To see everyone all working together sharing ideas on clothes mending and alternatives to sustainable fashion. Chatting about their favourite charity shops and mending tips, it is very rewarding.” - Sarah
Eleanor & Sarah: In conversation
When St Margaret’s House, like so many venues, had to close last March you were able to move some workshops online. What inspired you to start doing so?
At first, we were a little unsure what was the best way to carry on online, we were already doing some ‘how to’ videos and blog posts before lockdown and knew these would be a great thing to build up to help people stuck at home so focused on these mostly.
We were really missing connecting with our community that came to the Create Place though, and after a few requests from the people who used to come to our workshops in person, we decided to start a social ‘sew-along’ once a month online. It feels like it’s been a great way to see some friendly, familiar faces still and share sewing tips with each other.
What have been the benefits and challenges with this new way of delivering creative activities? Has anything surprised you?
One of the great things has been connecting with people from all over the country, and sometimes the world(!), who wouldn’t normally get a chance to join us. Even people from the other side of London who never would have been able to make our workshop after work on a Monday evening, there've been so many new faces! We now have people joining us regularly from all over the UK and even Canada.
It’s been challenging sharing the more precise or small-scale sewing skills online, sometimes you just need to be really close to someone to show exactly what’s going on with your needle and thread, but I think we’re slowly getting better at it with each workshop! Our attendees also miss using the sewing machines at The Create Place, it is such a great resource full of interesting materials and equipment.
In what way do you think the pandemic has had an impact on fast fashion?
There have definitely been some positive impacts in terms of giving some people more time to mend and sew their own clothes, lots of people have taken up new craft skills over the many lockdowns and it seems mending is one of them. The general slowdown in the pace of life at the start seemed to make a lot of people reflect on living more sustainably generally. But the recent news of Boohoo buying brands from Arcadia and now owning half the high street is disappointing with reports on them not paying staff a living wage and encouraging customers to buy what they don’t need.
There have definitely been some positive impacts in terms of giving some people more time to mend and sew their own clothes, lots of people have taken up new craft skills over the many lockdowns and it seems to mend is one of them. The general slowdown in the pace of life at the start seemed to make a lot of people reflect on living more sustainably generally. But the recent news of Boohoo buying brands from Arcadia and now owning half the high street is disappointing with reports on them not paying staff a living wage and encouraging customers to buy what they don’t need.
Hopefully, it will mean we can focus our efforts more easily when applying pressure on them to change their behaviours and more of the high street will be making clothes more ethically and sustainably in the long run.
You also have a brilliant online archive of videos to help people learn sewing techniques for mending and making. What advice would you give to someone who is interested in being more ethical and sustainable in their fashion choices but doesn’t know where to begin?
Start small! It’s overwhelming the amount of information and ideas out there but just start somewhere, even if it’s learning how to darn one tiny hole in your sock, sewing on a button or trying out a month of only buying second-hand clothes, these little changes will get the ball rolling and inspire you to carry on.
And don’t make yourself feel guilty for not doing it perfectly, there’s not really a ‘perfect’ sustainable choice when it comes to fashion, we’ve just got to keep trying to find the better ones that fit into our lives.
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