At first glance, we seem bombarded with clothing options. Never before in history have there been so many stores and styles to chose from. Don’t like the ‘fast fashion’ of the malls? There are vintage shops a-plenty. Having trouble finding a specific item you see in your mind? Go online and you’ll probably uncover something similar.

As clothing has become more and more central to our identities, styles have multiplied exponentially, like molecules in a petri dish.

But not everyone is represented in the innumerable items on the rack. As Jeanne Beker recently wrote about a friend of hers who uses a wheelchair, many people still get left out of the fashion industry despite declarations of democracy.

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Pinking shears no more! A serger (or an overlock machine, if you are fancy like that) will cut the fabric and finish the edge all in one fell swoop of the presser foot. For January mending night we will have a serger on site to help you recycle old knits into cozy scarves, hats, and mittens.

Of course we will still have tools on hand for any mending projects, but if you’ve never used a serger before, I implore you to sew a seam or two.

WORN’s Thursday Night, Your Stockings Needed Mending
January 12 (and the first Thursday of every month), 7 to 10 p.m.
Freedom Clothing Collective, 939 Bloor Street West
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Do you remember that moment when you realized you really liked fashion? That transition when your interest in dress, adornment and clothing went from a passive form of enjoyment to an unquenchable curiousity?

Perhaps it happened with an article that gave you the history and context of a particular style, a detail on a pair of pants that you knew must be modeled on something rather old but couldn’t quite place, a list of required classes for a fashion degree, obscure titles cited in the pages of magazines (including, ahem, Worn Fashion Journal). You found questions you never knew you could ask. Suddenly, it wasn’t enough to put on the dress; you needed to know its conceptual and cultural story. There are the questions you start to obsessively ask:

Did fashion play a part in any of the suffragist movements? Why does the human brain like repeating patterns, and why do we put them on our clothing? What are the socioeconomic demographics behind modern hipster fashion? How many shoes would your average Victorian lady have owned in her lifetime? What about her maid? And why? And where did we get that rule that horizontal stripes are not slimming?

These are the questions that have been plaguing many of the fashion students, journalists, history majors, artists, and other individuals amongst you. What are your research options? Who are the gatekeepers to the information you might be interested in? How far could you take your search? With this series, we aim to help you find the next steps, to get your vintage brogue-clad foot into the door of fashion research opportunities.

Part 1: Fashion and Research
Mapping Your Path

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Bummed about returning to work or school now that the holidays are over? Why not take a breather from homework and check out WORN Gift Packs? Each one now contains issues six through ten, plus two pins handmade lovingly by our Wornettes. Five issues for a mere twenty bucks? That works out to four bucks a piece, way cheaper than one of those fancy coffee thingies you get at Starbucks. How’s that for back to school math?