Ep 143, It's Amazing What She Can Do with an Old Table Cloth - Meet the Menswear Maverick Behind Bode

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EPISODE 143 FEATURES AMERICAN FASHION DESIGNER EMILY ADAMS BODE

Lock up your linens! Emily Adams Bode has designs on your grandma's tablecloths. And her quilts. America's favourite emerging menswear talent made her fashion name upcycling characterful old domestic textiles and dusty deadstock - winning a CFDA award and a Woolmark Prize while she was at it. The result is menswear with meaning, designed to be passed down the generations.

This is a lovely quirky conversation about what inspires her as a maker and collector, the joys of upcycling and the layers of meaning in hand-worked and customised clothes.  We discuss everything from growing up in Atlanta, Georgia and the influence of her grandfather’s bowties, to studying philosophy, to how independent businesses make up the essential fabric of neighbourhoods.

NOTES

HUNTING & COLLECTING “A lot of it is provenance…If something has a particular narrative that goes along with it – maybe where it came from, the person’s name, a signature, a date, maybe a note attached – they’re the most wonderful finds,” as Emily told Vogue.

UPCYCLING ANTIQUE FABRICS The description of Emily’s work Clare likes best is from the Wall St Journal. “Often made from deadstock fabrics and decorated with charmingly anachronistic embroideries or appliqués, items look as though they’ve been rescued from a water-damaged steamer trunk in Great-Aunt Margaret’s attic.” Read the story in full here.

HARRY That “Custom shirt for Harry Styles from 1970s lace” of which we speak? Eyes here:

SENIOR CORDS “Senior cords were an Indiana tradition... The trend likely originated at Purdue University in the first decade of the C20th. As the story goes, some Purdue seniors noticed a bolt of yellow corduroy fabric displayed in the window of Taylor Steffen Co., a tailor on Main Street in Lafayette, in the fall of 1904. The seniors decided to have trousers made from the material, and the corduroy pants soon became a fashion statement for the rest of the class…As early as 1912, the trend had spread to other Indiana colleges as well as high schools.

For most, senior cords represented a rite of passage into the adult world. As such, they were reserved for seniors only. Early versions of cords were plain or listed only a few signatures from classmates. As time passed, however, new decorative themes were adopted: school mascots, cartoon characters, group and club membership, and sports themes. These items helped personalize senior cords for each wearer by showing off their activities, achievements and aspirations.” Via Indiana State Museum - read the rest here.

Here’s the Bode IG post Clare references, it’s from November 2018.

Caption reads: “National Corduroy Day tomorrow...come celebrate with us. We’re launching a special collection of “senior cords” that are customizable on site.” After the RSVP deets, it reminds attendees: “MUST WEAR CORDS.”

TOBACCO SILKS “The practice of inserting advertising in tobacco products and packaging began about 1870 and was common throughout the late 19th Century and the first decades of the 20th Century… One of the most popular of the tobacco inserts or premiums was the tobacco or cigarette “silk”. While they are called silks, they were actually made from a variety of fabrics such as silk or silk satin, a cloth combination of silk and cotton, a cotton sateen or even a plain woven cotton. The silks were often beautifully poly-chrome printed with varied subjects, and were usually printed with the tobacco company name.” Via Princetoniana Musuem.

D.I.Y. “‘How to Make a ‘Sweetheart’ T-Shirt” ran in the New York Times in 2020. Make your own. “Experienced sewing not required, can be made using a needle and thread or home machine. If you’re not keen on craft-making, you can commission a custom one by email…”

WOOLMARK Bode was the winner of 2020’s International Woolmark Prize The Karl Lagerfeld Award for Innovation. French fashion icon Carine Roitfeld was one of the judges, and praised Bode’s particular brand of nostalgia - “BODE’s story of working with old pieces and transforming them took me back to my childhood. When I was young there was no fashion like there is today so I would go to the flea market and my mother and I would sew patches onto clothes to make them new. BODE’s collection reminds me of this time and I like that."

More info on the prize here.

From Bode’s Woolmark-winning collection.

The British menswear designers Clare mentions are BETHANY WILLIAMS (listen to her on Episode 70) and PRIYA AHLUWALIA - both champion upcyclers of the new guard.

Emily combined her menswear studies with philosophy in a dual degree at PARSONS School of Design and Eugene Lang College in New York.

HAVING A RETAIL SPACE In November 2019, Emily opened her first store in New York’s Chinatwon. Check out more pics on Hypebeast.

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Ep 139, Iceland's Most Exciting Knitwear Provocateur Ýr Jóhannsdóttir

How big is sustainable fashion in Iceland? You might be surprised to find out. We also nearly called this Episode: The Secret Lives Of Sweaters. Listen and you will see why.

In this fascinating, surprising conversation about funny jumpers and changing the world, we meet Ýr Jóhannsdóttir - a textile designer, artist/activist upcycler from Reykjavik.

With her label Ýrúrarí (and her huge Instagram following) she is making a name for herself using creativity and humour to challenge fashion's unsustainable ways. 

People want to have fun with fashion, she says, and if we can use that to get a serious message across, that's a powerful thing. Also up for discussion: Iceland's craft and wool tradition, appreciating the local, resourcefulness, tool libraries and the future of fashion as sharing. 

Discover Ýrúrarí here.

NOTES

ICELAND dealt with thousands of earthquakes for a few weeks before a volcano on the Reykjanes Peninsula exploded on March 19, 2021. Crazy stories here and here. Everyone’s safe tho. Phew.

SWEATER SAUCE (Peysa með öllu) saw Ýrúrarí and Iceland’s Red Cross collaborate for the 2020 DesignMarch festival. Here is the video of the show.

Ýr Jóhannsdóttir is currently in residency at the Museum of Design and Applied Art until the end of May. Find out more about her exhibition here.

Iceland produces 20 KILOGRAMS OF TEXTILE WASTE every year. In comparison, Australia produces 23 kilograms per year and North America produces 28 kilograms per year.

Wool has been incredibly important to the history of Iceland, with sweaters being favoured by fisherman and farmers in the notoriously chilly Icelandic weather. Most of Iceland’s wool is being sent to China to be processed. Read more about the struggling Icelandic knitting community here.