Working With Existing Clothes
A hands-on workshop focused on engaging with existing garments as materials for exploration rather than finished products. Participants work with old clothes to investigate form, wear, repair, and transformation, developing new relationships with what already exists.
Fashion as Behaviour
his workshop explores clothing as a form of behaviour and expression rather than trend or output. Through observation, discussion, and simple practical exercises, participants reflect on how garments influence movement, feeling, and social interaction.
The Life of a Dress
Based on the travelling installation, this workshop invites participants to slow down and reconsider the value of textiles and garments over time. Using storytelling, handling, and collective reflection, the workshop opens up conversations about care, memory, and material longevity.
We organise participatory sessions and events that explore the life of a dress through community-based design and creative reuse. The workshops are adaptable to different group sizes and ages, creating space to pause, make together, and experiment with second-hand garments and mixed media. Rather than offering fixed answers, they invite shared moments of creation and reflection that gently question how fashion is usually done.
Bestseller
Workshop formats
Working with existing materials
We organise hands-on workshop focused on engaging with existing garments as materials for exploration rather than finished products. Participants work with old clothes to investigate form, wear, repair, and transformation, developing new relationships with what already exists.
Bestseller
Who is it for
- Adults and community groups
- Students and educational contexts
- Cultural institutions and organisations
- Designers, artists, and researchers
- Anyone curious about clothing beyond consumption
Workshops are adapted to suit different groups and contexts.
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Practice & Facilitation
Amanda Margareta Curtis is a fashion practitioner and researcher with a lifelong interest in old clothes and in how garments shape feeling, behaviour, and ideas. Trained in textile making and textile engineering, and with a background in modelling and styling, she developed an insider’s understanding of fashion alongside a growing critique of its focus on constant production.
For over 20 years, her project Dreamandawake has provided a platform to explore clothing and photography as forms of expression rather than output. This work has generated an extensive photographic archive and the travelling installation The Life of a Dress, both inviting renewed attention to the value of existing textiles and garments. Her workshops build on this long-term practice and research, including her PhD Redesigning Together, and offer space to engage with fashion in slower, more reflective ways.