Episode 229: Every community needs a Radical Sewing Club, with Scout Quiquivix

Welcome to Clotheshorse, the podcast that is so impatient for spring that I might have to do the seasonal clothing swap from my attic a little early this year.

I’m your host, Amanda and this is episode 229.  As you know by now, I have been thinking a lot about how we as individuals can do good things in difficult times. And there are two thoughts that I just keep coming back to over and over again:

1. The seemingly small things we can do as individuals are actually really radical, impactful, and important.  Whether that’s mending our clothes, calling our representatives, boycotting big brands and shopping small and secondhand instead…even just cutting back on our consumption of single use plastics.  I live in such a bubble of how radical these things I am doing every day are…but Dustin’s recent trip to visit family reminded both of us of how differently we are living.  Can one individual change the world on their own? Unlikely unless we’re talking about the plot of an action film.  But when we are doing these seemingly small things at the same time, we see huge shifts happen. Which brings me to number 2…
2. Rebuilding and reengaging with our community is essential if we are going to accomplish anything. And it’s also an essential part of quality of life for us.  Sometimes we just need to sit around and gab with some other people and it doesn’t even have to be about anything serious.  Human interaction is essential. Knowing our neighbors is essential.  And I think many of us lost that in the first few years of the pandemic (I know I did).  TBH I was feeling that when we moved to Philadelphia in 2018 because I just couldn’t find friends in Philly.  That isolation made me even more depressed, but I guess it made the transition into quarantine a lot easier for me.  Beyond the emotional wins of community, working with others actually amplifies the impact of the small-but-radical things that we do every day.

So yeah, I’m thinking a lot about how we can connect with our communities and have a positive impact on them. Because I truly believe that real change starts small and close to us.  It’s why I believe so much in the power of small business. But it also begins with grassroots efforts, these seemingly small but radical things.  Last week, I had a zoom hang out session with some other friends in the slow fashion world (all past guests on the pod).  First off, it was so nice to just spend time with them because all of us have been feeling kind of isolated and anxious and I’m grateful that one of our friends did the work of getting us all together. In our conversation, we started talking about how we feel that the biggest organizations in sustainable fashion are missing the mark when it comes to inclusivity and bringing more people into the fold. And to be honest, I see a lot of the stinky behaviors of fast fashion reflected in the sustainable fashion world way too often:

• Classism, fatphobia, racism, ageism in the ways information is shared and who is featured as a voice or model.
• Intense competition, possibly because nowhere is the money scarcer than in the world of sustainable fashion. A big name in the world of slow fashion (who many of you follow) has actually been systematically blocking other creators in the slow fashion space because she feels that we are all copying her ideas by existing. This sense of scarcity actually kills collaboration.  And that frustrates me because we actually need WAY MORE people talking about all of these things so that we can reach more people.  We need many more people involved if we’re going to change anything. And there is room for everyone!
• In fact this intense competition leads to another shitty fast fashiony thing: stealing and copying content.  This happens constantly and just about every creator in the slow fashion space has a story. For me, the most traumatic example was what happened with Remake a few years ago.  I still feel shaken up by it. Basically they shared a post that appeared to outsiders as a collaboration with me where I was talking about how my experiences with bipolar disorder sometimes led to more shopping on my part.  Except that wasn’t the full story.  And I wasn’t consulted about the post. Rather it was pulled from a caption I shared on a post two years before that.  And it was completely out of context.  That was traumatic enough, but then the organization and the CEO continued to bully and gaslight me for days afterwards, trying to paint me as a fame chaser or something. So that made me hesitant to stand up for myself ever again, which means over the years, large accounts and organizations (including Remake) have copied or blatantly reused my work without talking to me.  It sucks. It’s gross and fast fashion-y.  

All this is to say that we don’t need huge organizations or big accounts to make change in the world.  We need each other. We need our communities. And we need more of the small but radical things we do every day to become the norm.  

Throughout this year, I’m going to be sharing episodes about different things you can do in your community that seem small, but create positive impact.  If you’re doing something in your community that you think would be great for other people to introduce in their area, drop me a line.  Maybe we can do an episode about it.

All of this long introduction is just so I can explain why I am so excited about this week’s guest: Scout of Radical Sewing Club!  Described as “A safe space to learn how to sew and repair textiles while in community,” Radical Sewing Club is a weekly meetup held in LA. Right now Scout is on a “world tour,” holding Radical Sewing Club nights in other places.  And next week they will be in Cafe Con Libros in Pomona, CA. 

I’m so excited for you to meet Scout because while mending and sewing is often dismissed as unimportant, unskilled work, we know that is completely untrue. And Scout is going to share what they have learned along the way that can help you start your own mending and sewing club in your community! We will be talking about important things like venue, cost, materials, and even how a typical Radical Sewing Club evening plays out.

Along the way we are going to talk about lots of other important things, including the following questions:

• Has capitalism taken away sources of joy for us (only to try to replace it all with shopping)? How do we get those back?
• Why is the lack of third spaces an issue that impacts people of all ages?
• Why is building community sometimes as simple as knowing your neighbors? And how has capitalism made that more difficult?
• Why is it actually super radical to repair fast fashion?
• And how many people do we really need to push back and make serious change in this world?

We’ll also touch on the cows that are my neighbors and why we have jeans trauma thanks to the 00s.

Okay, let’s jump into my conversation with Scout!

Thank you again to Scout for sharing their expertise and experience with us. It was so amazing to hang out with Scout and I really do hope to someday go to LA and experience Radical Sewing Club for myself. As I mentioned in the intro, Scout is currently on a world tour of Southern California with Radical Sewing Club and they will be in Pomona later this week.  I will share the link for tickets in the show notes, along with all of the other ways you can find Radical Sewing Club.   I am also going to share a great list put together by Danielle of Front Porch Threads that shares other mending groups around the world.  

Before we jump into the last thing I want to discuss this week (my reason for feeling optimistic this week), I want to mention a way you can help a member of the slow fashion community right now.

Selina Sanders–a friend and a former guest here on Clotheshorse–is a slow fashion designer that many of us know and love thanks to her beautiful upcycled clothing and her tireless work on behalf of garment workers rights.  Unfortunately her family was impacted by the LA wildfires in January.  While her house is still standing, it is unlivable due to damage from the fires.  Her family has been displaced since January, living off of credit cards in temporary housing. Her studio is in her house and it is also unusable right now.  Most of the equipment is heavily damaged and will need to be replaced, along with materials, etc.  This means she can’t work and her business–which helps support her family–is on hold right now. To make matters worse, her insurance is dragging its heels on paying for the damage.  And it’s trying to pay less than state law requires. It has also stopped covering any temporary housing.  She and her husband have filed a complaint with the California Department of Insurance. But things like this take time to resolve (if they ever do) and Selina needs our help.  There are many ways you can help (and I will link to all of them in the show notes). That includes:

• Subscribing to Selina’s Substack
• Buying a pattern from Selina
• Or just directly donating to Selina via venmo

If you can’t afford to monetarily support Selina right now, share these options on social media because someone else in your community may be able to help.  I know it was very difficult for Selina to ask for help, but I’m glad we are here support her when she needs us.

Okay, so why am I feeling optimistic this week? Well I was going to talk about all of the court cases that are stopping DOGE and all of the horrible executive orders in their tracks. But I am going to put a pin in that until next week.

Instead, I want to talk about all of the protests I’m seeing all around the United States and the world.  And how many people I’m seeing on social media saying “I’ve never been a part of protest before but here I am at one and it feels amazing.”  

I’ve seen a lot of posts claiming the media is ignoring the protests taking place across the US, implying a bias or lack of trustworthiness.

The media IS covering the protests. It’s also covering the economic boycotts! The problem is that we aren’t seeing those pieces on social media, either because people aren’t sharing them…or they aren’t getting enough engagement to succeed in the algorithm. And both of those possibilities point to a fundamental way we are using social media as a destination for outrage, rather than a place for sharing information and building collaboration.

 I see this coverage because I read actual news sites. And I also (because I’m so chronically online) know where to find information about protests and when/where they are happening.  I have found that the subreddits for my city and state are actually great resources for finding that kind of information.  Also, grassroots organizations like 50501 and Indivisible are sharing details for events across social media platforms (including Reddit, Instagram, etc) and they have websites, too.  I’ll share that in the show notes.

The fact that many of us are not seeing the protests on social media  is a great example of… why we cannot get our news solely from social media. Protest coverage isn’t appearing on these platforms, either because people aren’t sharing it or the algorithm prioritizes outrage over information.

It’s no surprise to me or any other content creator because we experience firsthand that actual information and education rarely succeeds on social media. I’ll spend six hours creating a super encouraging post with helpful information, only to see it get a few hundred likes. But if I share something that feels more inflammatory like “Free People is fast fashion,” I’ll get thousands of likes, shares, and follows. The algorithm rewards outrage and bad feelings! I don’t know how we fix that…and it’s certainly a struggle for those of us trying to share educational content. But in the mean time, one of the best things all of us can do is actually read and listen to the news, rather than just doomscrolling for it. And engage on social media with the accounts that give us useful education and information so that it is pushed up in an algorithm that otherwise hides it.

That said–the protests re mind that of something very important:

WE ARE NOT DOOMED…unless we decide to be doomed and therefore, do nothing. And that applies to EVERYTHING: climate change, plastic pollution, the global rise of fascism, etc.

And listen, I get it…sometimes taking a doomer view of things feels easier: if you accept the worst fate, you don’t have to try for something better. You won’t be disappointed. You just don’t have to worry any more.

But have you heard of the “3.5% rule?” Research by Erica Chenoweth, a political scientist at Harvard University, found that only 3.5% of a population engaging in political protest will result in serious political change.

And all of the things we are facing right now ARE political, even if they don’t seem like it on the surface. Solving any of them will require a combination of policy change/regulations (aka laws) and personal change (that’s us on an individual level). Here in the US, that means we need about 10 million people involved in protesting, calling our representatives, signing petitions, and spreading true, fact-based information. That’s 200,000 people in each state. WE CAN DO IT!  If everyone who follows Clotheshorse across all of the social media platforms got a couple of their friends involved…well that’s a large group right there!  And guess, what? It’s already happening!!!

In a time when the worst people and systems want you to give up, resisting is both radical and revolutionary. And in my opinion, those are way better adjectives than “doomed.”

Please don’t give up. Let this be the year that changes history for the better!