Making the Unseen, Visible
There are 2 quotes driving my work in 2025:
The purpose of art is to make the invisible, seen. (Andy J Pizza)
There is no waste in nature. (Unknown)
I want my work, and Conscious Costume, to reveal hidden waste and excess, particularly in the current costume production process, while taking inspiration from natural systems that reuse every molecule.
Just as a tree sheds her leaves in the fall, and those leaves feed the mycelium and bacteria of the soil, our excess materials could ‘feed’ someone else’s creative process. The repurposing process in nature is often invisible. We cannot see the microbes and fibers that slowly break a fallen oak into rich soil for the next generation of forest. At Conscious Costume, we are trying to make the ecosystem of costume materials more visible. As I discussed in a previous post, many people currently use a linear model (take, make, toss) in their production process, but we’re disrupting that by providing alternatives to unwanted costumes and materials.
Unfortunately, the human way is not nearly as tidy as the natural way. On my last road trip, I spent time considering the landfills that line the highways in SE Michigan. Landfills are a poison, toxic chemicals seep into the soil, methane gas leaks into the air, and the trash inside does not biodegrade into soil because the anaerobic environment prevents it. Incineration is a poison, it burns into a toxic cloud that poisons our lungs, waters, and soil. “Everything returns to the earth as either a nutrient or a poison” (I cannot find the origin of this quote but it’s not mine).
We must wake up and see the catastrophic waste problem we are facing in parallel with the climate crisis and social collapse. We are living through a polycrisis of climate change, environmental degradation, waste piling up, and social injustice. It is imperative that we solve these together and many transformative ways of working can help in all of these areas, like Conscious Costume.
Here are ways that Conscious Costume is applying these ideals:
Annual costume swaps with the CGTA which attract hundreds of people and several thousand pounds of costumes each year. Seeing the abundance of Chicago’s unwanted costumes spread out in a tiny black box theatre each year reveals how much wealth we have hidden in our individual collections. -- This event is hosted shortly before Halloween and is 100% free to attend. It is a service to theatre companies to have a sustainable way to clean out their costumes and offers free, accessible clothing and costumes to people who need them. We specifically invite many community organizations that provide clothing to immigrants, unhoused people, and more.
Costume rentals are supplied by the leftovers from these swaps, and our 500 square feet of storage is constantly PACKED. We keep our rental fees low (close to thrift store pricing) in order to accommodate stagnant non-profit and educational costume budgets. This gives early career or marginalized designers and productions access to high quality costume production values at a fraction of the commercial cost. -- Rental fees only accounted for just 30% of our budget last year.
Semi-annual second hand fabric sales with our parent organization, AIBI, where we routinely sell around 500 lbs of fabric that was otherwise taking up space in someone’s studio. Once again, this event reveals hidden abundance of materials, and everything is accessibly priced for student and emerging designers across fashion and costume design.
COMING SOON we will offer fabric scrap recycling for select fibers, making it clear that these are not invisible waste—they still have value!
What was previously waste—or a storage nightmare—is now in an old growth costume forest preserve, where designers in future generations can benefit from the skills and labor of the present. Thank you for supporting our forest!
I believe that costume designers and stylists across theatre, film, TV, dance, opera, and more have the opportunity and the platform to inspire each other and our audiences to be more considerate in our clothing choices.
How are you using your platform to inspire others to be more thoughtful about material use?
How are you revealing the invisible?
How are you part of the creative forest?
*Photo by Luke White on Unsplash
