Lead artist, Epping Forest Arts, with artists: Catriona Faulkner, Danny Fresh, Sue Healey, Emily Jost, Arjunan Manuelpillai, Victoria Quirke, Ben Whyman.

Epping Forest District Museum, Waltham Abbey Library, Loughton Youth Club, Alder House, Chigwell, WAY 2000 Youth Club, Limes Farm Youth Club, local residents - Loughton and Epping, residents from Jessopp Court Sheltered Housing, Waltham Abbey. Essex County Council, Leonard Cheshire Disability, London College of Fashion. 

There is potential in something you buy from a charity shop it's not the end, it's the beginning. As Vivien, an older contributor says:

'I don't like to buy something that's perfect, I like to think what I can do with it.' 

This is where makedo&mend started - with a pile of second hand clothing and some potential.

A two year initiative (2008/9) involving individuals and groups of all ages and abilities in the Epping Forest District in a range of creative activities; customising and restyling second hand clothes; a music and dance collaboration between different groups exploring 1940s British music and fashion from a contemporary perspective; capturing memories of the period; creative writing, designing, illustrating and writing copy for the mdam magazine (catalogue for the exhibition); culminating in an exhibition, with accompanying events and workshops, at Epping Forest District Museum.

The makedo & mend exhibition and exhibition catalogue gave Epping Forest District Museum the opportunity to showcase selected garments and items from their collection with those made and contributed during the project, in a unique context that was a celebration of the ordinary — how people, past and present, have coped with restriction (financial, physical, violence / war, loss) in small, as well as in life changing ways, and revealing stories and connections between the 1940s and the present day, enabling links between generations and groups who are normally isolated from one another.

Images from project and exhibition —

makedo&mend exhibition catalogue

Illustrations, written copy, and garments featured; by project participants from local youth clubs, residential homes and sheltered housing schemes in the Epping Forest District.

Epping Forest District Council, London College of Fashion UAL, Leonard Cheshire Disability, Essex County Council