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Woman grows own dress from flax in bid to slow fashion

Created at 29 Aug · 11:06 AM1 source↑ Market-relevant
IN SHORT

Eve Ogden Schaub is undertaking a project to create a linen dress entirely from flax she is growing, processing, and spinning herself. Documenting the process online, she aims to challenge fast fashion's environmental and ethical implications by highlighting the value of slow, meaningful creation.

Key Numbers

600 sq ftgarden size for flax plot
April 2025start date of project

Who's Involved

Eve Ogden Schaub
woman growing her own dress from flax
Stephen Schaub
photographer for project images

↳ Why This Matters

This project challenges the environmental and ethical consequences of fast fashion by demonstrating the labor-intensive, time-consuming, and valuable process of creating clothing from raw materials, encouraging a reevaluation of consumer habits and the true cost of garments.

Key facts

  • Eve Ogden Schaub is growing flax to create a linen dress from scratch.
  • The project involves growing, harvesting, processing, spinning, weaving, and sewing the garment.
  • Schaub aims to challenge the environmental and ethical issues associated with fast fashion.
  • She is documenting her journey through videos shared on Instagram.
  • The project highlights the value of slow, meaningful creation and traditional craft.

Eve Ogden Schaub is undertaking an ambitious project to create a linen dress entirely from flax that she is growing, processing, and spinning herself. Schaub began the initiative in April 2025, transforming a 600 sq ft vegetable garden in Vermont into a dedicated flax plot. She has since harvested two crops and is learning the intricate, traditional steps involved in turning flax into linen yarn, a process she describes with fairytale-like imagery.

These steps include retting, breaking, scutching, and hackling, followed by spinning. Schaub is also cultivating indigo plants to dye the yarn and plans to weave the fabric on a large loom before cutting and sewing the dress. She views this extensive undertaking as a way to challenge the prevailing fast fashion trend, which she identifies as an environmental and health catastrophe.

Schaub's project is documented through videos shared on her Instagram account. She seeks to question the societal preference for cheaper, faster production and explore the potential gains from slowing down and engaging in more meaningful activities. As a self-described "fibre-person and maker," Schaub has a history of lifestyle experiments, including a year without sugar and a year without producing waste, which she notes aligns with her current endeavor to reduce reliance on synthetic materials.

She acknowledges the learning curve, particularly in spinning, but emphasizes the value of shared knowledge and the inherent humor in the process. Schaub believes her project sheds light on why clothing was historically a valuable commodity and why people owned fewer garments. Her own perspective on clothing has shifted, finding department store items less appealing and developing a greater appreciation for mending existing clothes. While her sewing experience is limited to Halloween costumes, she plans to collaborate with an experienced friend to design the dress using historical patterns. Schaub cannot predict the project's completion date but is committed to wearing the final garment, which she anticipates will be deeply meaningful.

Frequently asked questions

Schaub aims to challenge the fast fashion trend by creating a dress entirely from flax she grows herself, highlighting the value of slow, meaningful creation and questioning current consumer habits.

The process includes growing flax, harvesting, retting, breaking, scutching, hackling, spinning the fibers into yarn, weaving the yarn into fabric, and finally sewing the dress.

She is sharing her journey through videos on her Instagram account.

Retting is a decomposition process used to separate the flax fibers from the woody core and outer bark of the plant stem.

What Happens Next

01Schaub will continue to process the flax into yarn.
02She will weave the yarn into fabric on a loom.
03Schaub will cut and sew the fabric into a dress.
04She plans to dye the yarn using homegrown indigo.
05Schaub will work with a friend to design the dress using historical patterns.
CME Headlines
  • September 2026 Delivery Date Memo - Effective August 24, 2026
    24 Aug · 4:34 PM

How It Developed

Eve Ogden Schaub began a project to grow flax for a linen dress in April 2025.
She converted a 600 sq ft garden into a flax plot, harvesting two crops.
Schaub is learning traditional flax processing methods, including retting, breaking, scutching, and hackling.
She is also growing indigo plants for dyeing yarn and learning to spin the flax.
The spun yarn will be woven on a loom to create fabric for the dress.
Schaub aims to question the environmental and ethical costs of fast fashion.
She hopes to explore the value of creativity and meaningful making.
Schaub has previously undertaken lifestyle experiments, including a year without sugar and a year without producing waste.

Sources

T1
‘I wanted to find the slowest fashion imaginable’: the woman growing her own dressThe Guardian

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