Happy New Year – Hoping you had plenty of rest and plenty of laughs as 2021 met its timely end and was reborn as the magnificent 2022.
I’d like to share a reflection that began during my Christmas shopping, if that’s not too much of a nauseating hangover trigger for you. I always have a trip to Cowling and Wilcox in Camberwell to get bits for stockings. And this is the 4th year that I’ve pondered the ‘novelty artist socks’. My partner is an artist, and a wearer of socks, which on the face of it, makes the novelty artist sock an ideal choice. A little kind of pointless, kind of cute bit of semi-useful tat. That’s what late stage capitalist consumerism is all about right?? As I um and err over the socks, I feel like- this is what people are afraid to give up. Socks! that are Fun! They’re bright colours and they remind you that you’re cultured. They remind you that global north culture managed to produce a crazy genius like Salvador Dali, and then make lololllolol socks that look like him in a pleasingly graphic way. So many socks, SO MANY SOCKS that sometimes you need to make them look like artists so that people will buy them and not the other socks. It’s just so perfect, how can we expect anyone to want to join a low carbon, bio diversity regenerative society, when at the moment they get novelty artist socks?? No-one wants to go back to brown socks, with holes in. NO THANKS.
And right there in Cowling and Wilcox I’m designing the carbon regenerative novelty sock production system. Of course- it’ll be run on renewable energy, maybe hydro, cos that turns out energy 24/7. There’s not much sock knitting infrastructure left in the UK, and I certainly don’t have any, so we’ll need to buy a sock knitting machine that can do pictures, and we’ll have to ditch the poly/cotton/elastane mix yarn, because that can’t be recycled or composted, once its no longer so novel its just landfill. Maybe a regenerative wool, it’ll be more expensive, but not if we own the land and stop paying such ridiculously high rents. We’ll have to use plant dyes, not dyes derived from crude oil. But- Great News! wool takes plant dyes really well, so the bright colours can stay. How do we make them last longer?? maybe reinforce the heels and toes so they don’t wear through. Don’t panic! Novelty Artist Socks are coming with us into the bright future of not exterminating ourselves with climate change.
But gosh, it does seem like such a lot of effort!! Much easier to just knit a pair of socks on some needles. No need to damn a river, or purchase an automated sock knitter and learn how to use it. So calming, so delightful to sit by a real fire, with a cup of mulled wine and knit a pair of socks. I could do that next year even; which of these artists should I knit? And really; this is the point when I realise the whole trick. As I’m deciding between Salvador Dali and Andy Warhol, I remember that my partner ACTUALLY REALLY LIKES ART. In a real sense, not in a tokenistic ‘Woah! elephants on stilts’ way. He knows about the context and who was trained in whose studio, and where the stone came from, and the crazy machine they used to make multiples by drilling little holes to the right depth etc. His favourite artist is not in this line up of the 4 most likely to sell cartoon artists. I’d have to knit a pair of Brancusi or Franz West socks.
The fun of socks with twirly moustaches knitted into them is not love, its not actually about you and how unique you are… It reduces you to 90s level Spice Girl uniqueness (but tbh if they were spice girl socks I’d be wearing Scary Spice socks right now, just one of life’s little ironies). Even your expressions of quirkiness and eccentricity are limited to five different flavours. Even the most exciting iteration of socks is still not Yoko Ono and Jon Lennon socks. Is not Barack and Michelle Obama socks. Is not Timothee Chalamet and Zendaya socks FFS!
Imagine opening up that Valentines Day gift, and its a pair of socks that no-one else in the world has, and they’re knitted to look like the celebrity couple of your childhood goals, or the film character of your favourite film, or the artist that soundtracked the first dance at your wedding. That’s the regenerative future that I’m offering you. That’s love. It can’t be done with our current systems of mass production, of working every hour of every day to destroy the very planet we live on just to make socks that aren’t even people’s real favourite artists. We have to realise we humans are so much better than that. We can make all the cool stuff, and we can do it without causing a climate catastrophe.
Alice Holloway has been beavering away in the Sustainable Fashion space since graduating from Central Saint Martins in 2008. Its not an easy space to work in. The skills and expertise of makers and practitioners has been really degraded by the rise of fast fashion and neo-liberalism.
Last year Alice completed an MA in Design for the Cultural Commons where we was energised by rediscovering her peasant ancestors who were so skilled, so resilient and tbh, having such a good time. Alice is on a mission bring us back into conversation with a way of life in balance with nature, and in balance with our own brains – which seem to really crave a deeper connection to each other and to nature.
Alice is the founder of Brixton-based bespoke lingerie brand Little Black Pants Club producing little handmade garments with big post-capitalist dreams.
