Top 100 - 2000–ongoing

Each set of ten shirts are to be remade to a different brief, for a different exhibition or event, using a different aspect of eco design thinking around consumer attachment issues. For the Well Fashioned exhibition Rebecca created the Christine Risley collection. The original blouses belonged to the late Christine Risley, a prolific textile designer whose entire wardrobe was donated in 2003 to the Constance Howard Resource and Research Centre in Textiles, Goldsmiths College, University of London. Rebecca remade the blouses using digitally manipulated images of the archive collection of objects from her studio, also held at the Research Centre. As “the biggest gains in our clothing’s environmental performance can be made by tackling the impact arising from their washing and drying” (Dr Kate Fletcher, Well Laundered, Well Fashioned website, 2006), the shirts have also be reshaped and overprinted to reduce the need to launder. The ongoing nature of the Top 100 project allows Rebecca to gradually explore new concepts for eco design as they emerge.

The Top 100 project, as mentioned above, began in 2002 and intends to explore fashion textile recycling using new textile technologies to create innovative exhibition and production pieces, for the high fashion/art audience. The systematic collection and creation of sets according to original narratives and eco design principles, makes this ongoing research project a constant vehicle to explore new concepts and is an ever-changing outlet for new ideas. The plan is to eventually show all one hundred shirts as a solo exhibition. The shirt collections have thus far been exhibited in shows in London and around the UK, and in Paris, Dijon, and worldwide with the Hometime event. They were also short listed for a Peugeot Design Award in 2002. The garment passport Rebecca designed for each recycled item charted the journey of the shirt from initial production, through to the owner and the final reincarnation by the designer.