Common Wealth stage a fashion show with a difference

Fast, Fast, Slow is a unique performance that Common Wealth Theatre company says will explore the complexity of our personal relationships to fashion, fast fashion and waste.

Presented as part of British Textile Biennial 2023, the show has been conceived with community members in East Lancashire, which is an area built on a now almost defunct textile industry where an online fast fashion distributor is now one of the major employers. 

Fast, Fast, Slow is presented on a full-scale catwalk constructed from used clothing bales in Blackburn Cotton Exchange, which was completed in 1865 to sell cotton grown and picked by enslaved labour from Africa in the plantations of the American South.

The catwalk will come to life in this multi-media performance featuring video art, cinematic lighting, bold choreography and a specially commissioned electronic score. The audience is seated on either side of the catwalk, VIP style, as part of this high fashion event.

The performance is designed to be both local and global, personal and political and zooms out to explore the impact of fast fashion and the wide-ranging and damaging dynamics of place and power.

The catwalk will showcase concept collections from six co-creators from communities in Blackburn and Burnley as well as collaborators from The Revival in Accra, Ghana, a community-led sustainable design and campaigning organisation. The collections will represent our push/pull relationships to clothing that is also experienced by the participants including ‘Wear it once, wear forever’, body dysmorphia, urban protection, and more.

“Working on Fast, Fast, Slow has been a process of unpacking the guilt, shame, and anger surrounding the fast fashion industry,” says Director Evie Manning. “We all have a connection to clothes and in the Global North our relationship to fashion is so wrapped up in a relentless hunger for more, driven by clever marketing that always makes us feel like we are less.

“We are working with some brilliant designers and performers from Blackburn to Accra, Ghana who all have such unique approaches to fashion and so much to say. We hope that this piece allows audiences space to reflect on their own personal relationship with clothes and fashion without judgement and allows them to connect to the personal and political themes in their own lives.”

The show premieres at Blackburn Cotton Exchange as part of the British Textile Biennial from 26th – 29th October 2023 and then tours to Bradford College as part of BD is Lit Festival from 3rd – 4th November 2023. Find out more and to book https://commonwealththeatre.co.uk/shows/