Holly McQuillan is a Senior Lecturer of Fashion Design at Massey University. She is a designer, maker, writer and facilitator, who works primarily in the field of sustainable design practice. Her work often explores risk taking in the context of fashion design as a way of discovering new ways of viewing and creating the world we live in.
PIVOT was commissioned by Frankie Magazine to photograph Holly to sit alongside a compelling story detailing her recent role leading the Make/Use team. This project explores what might occur if we consider not only the aesthetic of the garments we wear, but also the way we use them and the waste we create when we make them.
This ongoing research-through-design project questions conventions of the clothing industry in relation to knowledge-keeping, production practices and material use. Through developing open-source, user-modifiable, zero waste designs, Make/Use aims to empower users of clothing, and challenges them to question the relationships they have with their present and future garments.
In short, the fashion and textile industry is the second largest generator of pollution and waste in the world. Make/Use attempts to address waste generation at three stages in the garment life cycle - production, retail, and (dis)use.
Make/Use and Holly McQuillan aim to turn passive consumers into active, informed and emotionally engaged makers and users - ensuring that the industry and our natural environments are clean and sustainable.