“We chose fashion and craft as a language,” Geraldine de Bastion, Founder of the Global Innovation Gathering, tells RESET via a video call from her home in Berlin. “We all wear clothes,” de Bastion continues; she herself is wearing a white shirt with blue flowers. “Most people feel they have a kind of personal style. So we thought of this sector as a vehicle, as a language that we can use to engage more people in a maker space or with circular economy topics.”
De Bastion is part of the make-a-thek team. Their work aims to facilitate a more circular society by educating people in upcycling, clothing repair and textile skills. The three-year project, funded by Horizon Europe, is a collaboration between Global Innovation Gathering, PL 2030, Fashion Revolution Germany and the European Craft Alliance, among others. Now in its second year, the project is currently active in nine pilot sites in several European cities, including Berlin. Additionally, three bus tours will depart to rural locations, spreading make-a-thek’s crucial work beyond urban hubs.
Re-learning core sewing skills and bringing maker technology to textiles
make-a-thek brings participants together in dedicated maker spaces in public libraries. The team chose libraries as an ideal location for their workshops, events and meetups. Some already had maker spaces, while others required expanding with textile equipment. “But some libraries didn’t have a maker space at all yet,” de Bastion explains. “They’re using the make-a-thekproject to set up a dedicated maker space inside the library.”
make-a-thek teaches groups of 15-20 participants core textile skills such as natural dyeing, embroidery, upcycling, repair and basic sewing. “We’re also trying to see where we can marry maker technology with crafting and textile technology,” de Bastion tells us. The maker spaces often contain 3D printers, embroidery machines and open-source textile recycling machines, developed by the Global Innovation Network. These machines facilitate collaborative, innovative ways of ensuring textiles see a second life.
“[It’s very powerful to see] participants relearning a lot of these basic skills that people used to have in their households,” de Bastion says. “We also saw very organic ways of knowledge being exchanged. Some older women showed up at a workshop to learn about natural dyeing. But they brought a load of knowledge themselves to the table, too.”
How technology is reducing the fashion industry’s emissions
The fashion industry generates 2.1 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year, equivalent to the total emissions of France, Germany and the UK combined. From 3D samples to digital product passports to resale-as-a-service software, technology is stepping up to reduce textile waste and provide end-of-life solutions for our garments. For consumers, there are several apps designed to help you reduce the impact of your wardrobe, while choosing sustainable materials can help minimise your outfit’s harm to the planet.
Facilitating collaborations between siloed projects and forming community via upcycling
make-a-thek wants to destigmatise secondhand clothing and upcycling for its participants, and to encourage them to consider localised methods of producing clothes, rather than mass production. By using tools in a dedicated maker space, people can share them with others instead of splashing out on expensive equipment for a single textile project. “Having a maker space in a library is something we think is really important,” de Bastion says. “That’s a conversation we’re trying to push through make-a-thek”
Another focus for make-a-thek is facilitating connections and collaboration between siloed projects. De Bastion explains how many small initiatives there are in a city like Berlin, for example. “Creating a momentum between these initiatives and activities is so difficult. We have so much happening, and hardly any of the people know of each other.” Geraldien tells us about a tufting studio in Berlin, which generates waste yarn from every tufting stitch. “They were big on sustainability and wanted to figure out what to do with these wasted bits of yarn. But they came from a craft angle and were super disconnected to the sustainable fashion scene in Berlin.” Thanks to make-a-thek, the tufting studio connected with Hilo Studios—who have designed yarn recycling machines—to install a machine in their studio and reduce their textile waste.
make-a-thek’s bus tours have been making an impact beyond Berlin. The first bus recently travelled to rural Saxony in Germany, as well as Czechia and Poland. In Saxony, the team joined a local weaving workshop. “This workshop was the only place in the village, but also in surrounding villages, where grownups could come and hang out,” de Bastion tells us. “There are no pubs; there are no restaurants. There’s nowhere you can go after the bakery closes at 4 p.m. And [this means that] people just don’t talk to each other anymore.” make-a-thek hopes that libraries with maker spaces could counteract this social isolation. “Often people who vote for fascist parties lack these kinds of neighbourhood connections,” de Bastion explains. “So having these spaces open is, in a way, a core service towards democracy. This is a really important contribution that we can make, especially in the current political climate.”
Still waiting for make-a-thek to come to your region?
Search for repair cafés or maker spaces in your local area. Based in Berlin? Our article about the repair platform repami is a great starting point.
Upcycling infrastructure should be standard for a true shared economy
Our individual fashion choices—where to buy clothes, how we dispose of garments, whether we give up on the items we own after one rip or tear—are one way to bring about change in the fashion industry. But responsibility also lies with brands to implement ethical production methods that reduce their waste and emissions, as well as with governments and policymakers to bring about structural change. make-a-thek invites policymakers to their events to demonstrate what a truly circular society could look like in practice.
18 months into their project, make-a-thek has engaged 380 stakeholders via 17 community activation events. Next on the cards for them is planning five global pilots in locations beyond the EU, bringing maker spaces to communities across the world. “Everybody should have access to this kind of infrastructure,” de Bastion points out. “[make-a-thek is built around] the idea of the sharing economy, in a practical sense of bringing together neighbourhoods, getting people to understand the value of sharing, and of being a community space.”
