The immediate global climate crisis is, potentially, an historic turning point prompting opportunities to reevaluate future material resources. Situated accordingly, this study revolves around the axis of clothing as human-shaped shelter – for protection and aesthetic fulfilment – generating creative visioning that is cognisant of, and sensitive to, the cultural positioning and geographic situation of the two sites of the study in Paisley and on the Island of Tiree.

It does so in support of a resetting of narratives around the materials and infrastructures involved in the production of clothing by instigating and charting a creative social process that re-imagines dress, connecting it to the reality of evolving future material
resources, collective motivations, and adaptability to change.

As a means of focusing on current societal change, the research approach utilises Alexander Mackendrick’s film The Man in The White Suit (1951) and its handling of clothing as a provocative device to engage anxiety around change and the conflicting values of community, industry, and innovation. Specifically, to explore how globalised models of mass production and wealth accumulation might be challenged to nurture new levels of human sensory capacity and imagination in relation to the use of finite planetary material resources.