Mapping the Wardrobe
Image by Salome Egger
Mapping the Wardrobe was a Union of Concerned Researchers project, organised as part of our third Action Season to investigate the provenance of the garments produced in globally dispersed supply chains.
Mapping the Wardrobe was proposed by UCRF member Salome Egger and supported by UCRF Board members Amy Twigger Holroyd and Hakan Karaosman.
The project asks a deceptively simple question: who and where are our clothes connected to?
At an online workshop in April, a group of participants came together to draw on factual knowledge and speculative possibilities to explore the global supply chains that could have produced a number of garments in Salome’s wardrobe.
We thought about where each garment might have been made, and where the materials used might have come from. We tried to trace the materials and the hands that would have handled them back through the stages of production, from garment construction, to fabric production, to fibre production.
The workshop triggered lively discussions; many questions arose that could not be answered conclusively. While information on a garment’s label gives a starting point, it refers only to the final stage of putting a garment together. Therefore, we had to draw on common sense, industry knowledge, and educated guesses. At times, even expert knowledge ran out: we found ourselves in the dark.
The simple question about provenance revealed the complexity of transparency in the supply chain of clothing.
All of these discussions fed into a poetic and moving online lecture performance by Salome. This beautiful piece of work uses artistic practice to raise questions about provenance, transparency and global connections in the fashion sector:
Guided by our Manifesto, UCRF is committed to amplifying diverse voices and perspectives. Our goal is to foster an activist knowledge ecology and lead critical debates on fashion's systemic challenges. While we do not endorse a single viewpoint, we seek to offer a platform for varied ideas that inspire further dialogue and inquiry.
