Let’s get lost in the sauce*
28 February 2025In my degree programme Material Matters, I examine styling as a sustainable, social and artistic practice. It is not about producing or owning new clothes, but about entering a relationship with them. I try to create different situations in which clothing is experienced, changed or exchanged together. In these formats, clothing is not consumed, but activated - as a material full of potential.
I work with what is already there. The result is not a finished product, but a process: styling as an action that unfolds between bodies, gazes and materials. There is also room for the unfinished, uncertain or contradictory - as a creative resource and an invitation to debate. Material Matters sees itself as artistic research into the value, care and collective design of fashion.
I’m in the process of gathering methods to rebuild our broken relationship with fashion and offer alternatives to the current consumption patterns of the fashion industry.
I love fashion. Always have. The way it allows me to shape myself, to express something unspoken, to step into a character of my own making. But the longer I spend time with it, the more I realize—fashion doesn’t love me back.
It can’t.
Not when it has become this broken thing—an industry obsessed with efficiency, excess, and exclusivity. An industry that profits from overproduction while masking its environmental impact. That creates trends out of aesthetics it doesn’t understand, borrowing from marginalized communities without acknowledgment or paychecks. That turns style into something transactional, measuring value by how quickly something sells out or how much hype it generates.
But fashion was never meant to be disposable. It was never meant to move this fast. It was always about craft, identity, and culture. And yet, somewhere along the way, we lost that.
When I was little, my mom’s friends always brought me bags of their old clothes to dig through. That was fashion to me—possibility, play. A way to shape myself outside of what was expected. An escape. A way of engaging with fashion that existed long before sustainability became a buzzword.
Now, we’re told that the solution is to consume differently—to buy better, to shop ethically, to be more mindful. But what if fixing this isn’t about buying differently at all? What if it’s about completely rethinking our relationship with clothing?
«Between the seeding and the harvesting (spreading/gathering), the selling and buying, the grayness is situated: doing, dealing, acting, connecting, exchanging, passing, linking, sharing, transferring, developing,
These are relations. This is relating.» – NCCFN
Fashion is about relationships - with our clothes, with ourselves, with each other. And right now that relationship is toxic. Instead of care, we have disposability. Instead of connection, we have endless trends designed to make us feel excluded.
But this isn’t new. There are people who have been resisting this way of thinking long before “green” fashion caught on. For some, sustainability isn’t an innovation—it’s a necessity, a way of life. In communities that have long been excluded from the fashion system, resourcefulness has always been the standard. Repurposing, restyling, reworking—this isn’t a trend, it’s tradition.
So maybe the future of fashion isn’t about disruption. Maybe it’s about remembering. Learning from the past, from those who have always known how to make something last.
If fashion won’t love us back, we have to change how we love it. We have to make it work again, outside of the industry’s expectations. We have to slow it down, care for what we have, and rethink what it means to own something.
So get lost in the process, in the creativity, in the sauce—but don’t let it consume you. Find your own way. Honor the past, build for the future. Make fashion work with you.
*Sauce is a term from hip-hop and streetwear culture that was coined by Black and People of Colour. It describes a self-confident, independent way of styling that is not just about what you wear, but also how you wear it. Sauce is not just a style term, but expresses an attitude. Sauce symbolises authenticity and the ability to appropriate fashion in one's own way instead of passively consuming it.
Let’s cook...
I’m looking forward to your thoughts and feedback...
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What aspects of my argument resonate the most, and where do you think more context or evidence is needed?
- Are there additional historical or cultural examples of sustainable fashion practices I should incorporate?
- Does the balance between critique and solutions feel right?
- How do you personally navigate fashion in a way that resists overconsumption?
- How accessible does my research feel?
- Does the way I integrate links to existing projects feel natural?
- If I were to expand this work into a larger format, what would be the most useful way for you to engage with it?
- How might we further integrate practical solutions into our everyday relationship with fashion?