AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Making your own clothes is one thing, growing the material to make them is quite another.
EVE SCHAUB: I have a long history of doing unreasonable projects.
JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
That's author and humorist Eve Schaub. She said the seed of this idea came to her when she was thinking about fast fashion.
SCHAUB: What would it be like to truly find the slowest fashion there is?
CHANG: She thought about how generations of humans made their clothing from scratch.
SCHAUB: Ancient Egyptians, medieval Europeans, colonial Americans all grew linen and wore it. Why couldn't I do that, too? And so that was the beginning of growing a dress in my backyard.
SUMMERS: So last spring...
SCHAUB: I cleared out my vegetable garden, and instead, I planted flax.
CHANG: She harvested that flax a few months later. But growing the flax was only the first challenge.
SCHAUB: Then you break it, scutch it, hackle it, spin it into linen yarn. And then you do a process called scouring, which essentially cleans the yarn. And then I put it onto my loom, and I weave it, and then I need to cut it up and sew it into my dress.
SUMMERS: Schaub initially hoped to finish the project within one year.
CHANG: She's now well into Year 2, sharing her progress with hundreds of thousands of people on social media.
SCHAUB: People have been enjoying my videos and enjoying following along.
SUMMERS: Many of her followers are shocked by how much effort goes into making one dress.
CHANG: And for Schaub, that's part of the point. She hopes her hard work reminds us of the labor that we don't see behind the clothes we buy.
SCHAUB: There's worker exploitation involved around the world. And it's often very well hidden, unfortunately.
SUMMERS: But it's not just about opting out of fast fashion for ethical and environmental reasons. Schaub says the act of making something yourself gives you something you just can't buy.
SCHAUB: Potentially, it can bring us happiness and a sense of agency in your life. I made that. I made that thing. That thing did not exist. And then I brought it into being.
CHANG: And here's another amazing part of this project. For all this work, Schaub had never actually made herself a dress before.
SCHAUB: No. No, I've never made - you're right. I've never made a dress for myself before. So this is the best way to start - right? - by growing it from seed (laughter).
SUMMERS: She's still got plenty of work to do, but Schaub already knows this won't feel like just another outfit.
SCHAUB: This dress that I someday will have will be so much more meaningful than anything that I've ever worn because it will have so much of me in it.
CHANG: She says she has grown a lot by sowing the seed of this future dress.
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