The Art of Zero Waste

Waste and art have always gone hand in hand. It was the fantastic artist Leonardo Da Vinci who 500 years ago wrote “there is no such thing as waste” and he knew what he was talking about!

As a fashion designer who produces off cuts on a regular basis - there is absolutely no way I would be throwing these away! I see these as equally valuable materials - it's just you need to get a little bit more creative in how you use them.

Some see trash - I see treasure

I've now got my creative process down to a fine art (pun intended) - I have designated boxes for my scrap offcuts ready set up and colour coded and even sized up! So as soon as any scraps are produced they don't get binned they go straight into another design process. For example biggish scraps go to make certain designs like stripes and squares and the small stuff gets artfully pieced together in what I call my jigsaw puzzle process (since it's sort of like doing a jigsaw).

Yes this all takes extra time (I guess that's why we call it slow fashion) but I find this such a satisfying process - it's like a meditation in itself. And I get such joy making things out of what other people would consider only worth going in the bin and knowing that I'm not creating waste products but wonderful new wearable art.

You too can become a zero waste maker

Environmental activist, author, and motivational speaker, Bea Johnson came up with the 5 r’s of zero waste living in her book, Zero Waste Home. These are easy zero waste tips to guide your choice and live a more sustainable lifestyle.

Since her family began practicing these rules, their combined waste for a year amounted to a single mason jar! If you want to embark on a zero waste creative lifestyle, remember these rules.

1. Refuse what you do not need.

2. Reduce what you do need; reconsider just how much stuff you actually need.

3. Reuse by repurposing stuff or by using reusable objects like metal straws.

4. Recycle what you cannot refuse, reduce or reuse.

5. Rot (compost) the rest.