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Creativity, Craft, Gender and Fashion
  • ISSN: 2050-0742
  • E-ISSN: 2050-0750

Abstract

The specific relationship of female textile artists and crafters and political engagement has a long history and its social relevance is gaining more and more academic attention these days. At the same time, within recent still trending textile and fashion movements like DIY, Slow Fashion, Slow Crafting and Craftivism, the different sociocultural forms of female crafting circles and communities that have been at the margin of fashion studies under the non-fashionable term of ‘domestic arts’ are also getting more attention. This article explores craft activism, as e.g. the , in perspective of future-oriented possibilities and transformational societal and individual outcomes. It investigates several contemporary international female activist groups, their different approaches and relations in historical context. As these can be furthermore understood as relevant regarding not only recent insight on material and thing engagement (Material Engagement Theory) but also psychosomatic research, this article focuses also on the somatic experience: the various and individual inner processes of making within the specific socio-emotional context of shared critical crafting circles. These can be observed out of several perspectives as spaces of solidarity, recharging and peace, and within that contain an underestimated chance for empowerment – not only for women but marginalized groups in general. Simultaneously, critical thinking and making through textile and design, e.g. as observed with the hand stitching Arpilleristas in several countries of Latin America, can function as an approach to process individual and common bearings. Thus, in this context, textile can transform into a tool for personal well-being.

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2025-01-29
2025-03-15
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Craftivism: An investigation of female critical crafting circles
Clothing Cultures 10, 131 (2023); https://doi.org/10.1386/cc_00073_1
/content/journals/10.1386/cc_00073_1
/content/journals/10.1386/cc_00073_1
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  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): fashion; female artists; feminist craft; intersectional perspective; knitting; quilting; stitching; textiles

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