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Slow Textile Revival with the makers of The Nettle Dress
482 Plays2 days ago
One of today’s guests spent seven years spinning a dress from stinging nettles and the other spent five years documenting the process. The result was the incredibly moving documentary The Nettle Dress — which I have now seen twice — co-created by Dylan Howitt and Allan Brown.
It’s a love letter to old skills, hand crafts and everything that cannot be hurried; to fibersheds, foraged threads, gentle stories, and the magic of following your heart.
Dylan Howitt is a BAFTA nominated filmmaker whose roll call includes BBC, Netflix and Discovery. Allan Brown is a textile artist and subject of the film whose steady commitment to disrupting consumer culture is contagious.
It’s hard to sing The Nettle Dress’s praises highly enough without shattering a window, but I truly hope you’re moved to watch it after this conversation, perhaps with a posse of pals and a cauldron of nettle soup.
🧙♀️ LINKY POOS
***Watch The Nettle Dress***
The Nettle Dress’s home on the web
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Riskillians' Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
race scallia Hey, this is Katie and you're tuned into Riskillians, a podcast about the hard, soft and surprising skills that'll help us stay afloat if our modern systems don't.
00:00:18
Speaker
I'm gratefully recording in Jarrah country, central Victoria, where the days are ever so slowly starting to draw in as the microbats spread their tiny wings and feast on insects in the gloaming.
00:00:32
Speaker
The last few weeks have been busier than usual, which is usually pretty busy for me.
Katie's Digital Overload
00:00:37
Speaker
because I've had a lot of writing work which has been tethering me to the screen, on top of the podcast, combined with the full-time job of keeping up with text messages, Instagram DMs, WhatsApp threads, and Wordle.
00:00:49
Speaker
It feels like I'm touching a keyboard or a screen or a device 24-7, and I swear I can feel the tips of my fingers burning and sizzling like sausages on a barbecue.
00:01:01
Speaker
It's kind of like when you've been wearing shoes all day and the thought of cool grass or warm sand makes your toes curl with delight. That's how my hands feel after so much time with technology.
00:01:14
Speaker
They long to be planted in the soil, to touch rough bark and soft leaves, to fiddle and whittle and twist, to find their rhythm around the fire weaving something useful, not just tap, tap, tapping away on a cold and lifeless, slick and inert screen.
00:01:32
Speaker
Is this really the destiny of my ten precious digits? The conversation you're about to hear sparked an existential crisis for my screen-weary hands who are now questioning their life choices.
Meet the Creators of 'The Nettle Dress'
00:01:44
Speaker
Because one of today's guests spent seven years spinning a dress from Stinging Nettles with his own two hands and the other guest spent five years filming him do it.
00:01:56
Speaker
The result was the incredibly moving documentary The Nettle Dress, which I've now watched twice, co-created by Alan Brown and Dylan Howitt. It's a love letter to old skills,
00:02:09
Speaker
hand crafts and everything that cannot be hurried. If you haven't seen the film, don't worry, this convo is for anyone who wears clothes and perhaps I shouldn't assume that's all of you, or anyone who's ever wondered how they'd dress themselves if the shops suddenly went kaput.
Exploring Textile Revival and Filmmaking
00:02:25
Speaker
It's about the slow textile revival, fibre sheds, forage threads, invitational filmmaking, village cinema and the fairy tale magic of following your heart.
00:02:37
Speaker
We recorded this interview with a brutal 11 hour time difference. Alan and Dylan in the silvery light of a winter morning in England, me in the twilight of another long hot summer's day, sitting in my honorary green dress with massive sweat patches, just a little bit nervous about interviewing two supremely gifted humans.
00:02:58
Speaker
So just to orient you one voice that you'll be hearing is Dylan Howitt, BAFTA nominated filmmaker whose roll call includes BBC Netflix and Discovery and the other is Alan Brown, textile artist and subject of the film whose steady commitment to disrupting consumer culture is contagious.
Inspiration from 'The Nettle Dress'
00:03:17
Speaker
It's hard to sing the nettle dresser's praises highly enough without shattering a window, but I truly hope you're moved to watch it after this episode, perhaps with a posse of pals and a pot of miso and nettle soup.
00:03:30
Speaker
I've linked it for you in the show notes. My deepest thanks to Dylan and Alan for sharing so generously and passionately with us here on Reskillians. and to patrons of the podcast, including newcomer Gemma.
00:03:42
Speaker
Hey Gemma, thanks so much for your goodwill who are helping me create this show each and every week. Love to you all. Happy listening.
00:03:55
Speaker
Being in the same... audio sweet room as both of you is is such a delight it is 8 30 my time which is well into the witching hour here for me 8 30 p.m and quite early on your end so I thought maybe we could just start with like a vivid description of what you ate for breakfast if you could handle that kind of hard hitting line of questions um I had like um so a very strong black coffee because that's a necessary beginning of the day and then just uh yeah chopped apple uh organic from the local um box scheme that we use and then uh some raspberries and muesli with oat milk so that's pretty healthy i thought
00:04:37
Speaker
Oh, very good. Yeah, pretty much the same. I had muesli with seeds and um yeah bits and pieces all thrown in there with some oat milk and a coffee that I'm still on and a piece of toast with ah marmite just to open that old debate.
00:04:58
Speaker
We don't need to go there. But interestingly interestingly enough, we just moved into this this old cottage and there was a chap living here for a very long time. And part of our um negotiation tactic was you don't have to do anything with the house if we pay you a little bit less money, just like leave all your shit in situ. And what he left for us was like one jar of Vegemite, almost like it was on a plinth in the middle of the refrigerator.
Winter in England and Personal Reflections
00:05:22
Speaker
wow. It was hard to know whether to keep it or whether to bury it deep into the ground.
00:05:30
Speaker
So we were speaking a little bit off air about the season that you're in there. You're in end phase of winter and that possibly grueling period of ah drizzle and grayness in the UK.
00:05:41
Speaker
What kind of things are filling your days at the moment? Dylan, what have you been up to, mate? I haven't seen you for a while. Yeah, I mean, um what fills my days? i mean, i well, there's dog care, so there's definitely like at least two walks a day, and I go to the local woods, and that's lovely, and that's nice way to check in with what's happening seasonally.
00:06:03
Speaker
And then there's definitely a kind of a wintering phase for me. It's just a lot of work that I'm doing and at home, indoors, so... a lot of editing work happening at the moment. I'm getting back into my drawings. I'm doing a lot of drawing and artwork as well.
00:06:20
Speaker
Yeah, well, so similar, there's always a dog walk involved. um And I'm doing quite a lot of spinning, spinning on drop spindles as I'm splitting my time between London and Brighton.
00:06:34
Speaker
where I'm sort of based. um And ah I'm weaving woollen of series of shawls at the moment, and that's from Jacob's Fleece, ah from a friend who's got a farm up in the borders, just between, into Scotland there.
00:06:52
Speaker
And so I've been spinning that up since I went and visited so summer last year. And yeah, I'm just weaving those up very slowly um on just a simple, simple loom.
00:07:05
Speaker
And I'm still out and about doing chats about the nettle dress. I was in Chelsea College of Art last night chatting to students, showing the film and seeing what they're ah what they're up to. And um yes, it's still just connecting and visiting actually i went down to Flaxland, Simon and Nan who run, um well they basically sort single handedly been responsible for the whole flax growing revival in the UK sort of artisan hand hand-grown, hand-processed flax. So yeah, went down to see them to celebrate St Distaff's Day, which is the sort of traditional after 12 days of Christmas when the plough boys would go back to work and the women would put fibres on their distaffs and start spinning again. And yeah, so we had a
00:07:57
Speaker
a wonderful celebration with flax toe torches being lit and the boss Morris dances came. They're all female ah Morris dancing troupe who've got it going on. And yeah, it was lovely. So that really kind of broke up the dark, the dark days of winter a little bit.
00:08:16
Speaker
who Thinking about all the different threads of this conversation and trying to keep them into some kind of coherent through line. So maybe we should start at the beginning, which is,
00:08:27
Speaker
where I picked up the thread of the nettle dress. And for people who haven't laid eyes on this beautiful documentary that actually came out in 2023, but took a little while to kind of float down under, can you just give a bit of a verbal trailer of the film so that everyone is on our
The Seven-Year Journey of Crafting a Nettle Dress
00:08:43
Speaker
page? Yeah, so this is a film that follows um Alan over seven years as he makes a dress from foraged nettle fibre.
00:08:53
Speaker
ah So amazingly succinct. Short and sweet. I'm all about less is more. as As you'll find when if you watch the film, because the film could easily have been, and having filmed with Al over five five of the seven years, it could have easily have been a four-hour-long film. In fact, early cuts were that long, and I ended up cutting it because I've worked a lot as an editor, and I cut to the bone, and I cut it under 70 minutes in the end.
00:09:21
Speaker
So it does actually... move at a pace even though it's seven years of ah of a journey. And Dylan, did you realize that you were becoming entangled in such a long process when you started filming with Alan?
00:09:36
Speaker
ah Not really. not I mean, the film, just like the dress, kind of grew slowly and organically and it was literally following the thread. It wasn't a kind of high concept feature documentary idea from the very beginning. Like,
00:09:49
Speaker
oh, let's to make a film about making a nettle dress. It was actually more an exercise and experiential learning, learning as we went. and And so it started really with just Alan had been doing experiments with nettles over a couple of years and he wanted to just share what he'd been doing. So he asked me to make a kind of a how-to video.
00:10:11
Speaker
And so that's when I went along and saw for the first time what he'd been doing. And we made a ah short, I think it was about 12 minutes long that we put online called Nettles for Textiles. That was just a kind of basic how to get from the plant to some thread.
00:10:26
Speaker
And so I think showing a few examples of some very small we woven samples. And so that how to video just kept getting shared. We were thinking it might be seen by a dozen or more people you know who are actually interested in this, but it kept getting shared.
00:10:41
Speaker
and ultimately that led to al and a couple of other people setting up a facebook group called nettles for textiles which again started small but then grew and grew and grew and continues to grow i think there's about thirty four thousand people on there now from all over the world sharing their adventures with nettle and nettle textile and other other fibers as well it really was something that just grew very naturally and then from that we continued to film other other things that i was doing and we made a couple more short films so we called that the nettle trilogy we just put those online for free um but it was only a couple of years later that when al had enough ah yarn that he'd spun to make a a bigger piece and we start he started talking about making a dress that i realized that
00:11:30
Speaker
oh, I should really you know film this a lot more closely now, use all the material that i already had and finish the journey of of making the whole thing, the whole making the whole dress. So that's that whole period is five years of of kind of on and off filming and editing.
00:11:48
Speaker
And Alan, when did you first befriend nettle? I mean, I know it's it's quite ubiquitous in the UK. I get really excited when I see a patch of it here because we kind of lack a bit of moisture and fertility that I think it loves.
00:12:00
Speaker
So i'm I'm sure that it was part of your entire existence from childhood. But when did it first kind of enter your awareness as something to to play around with and experiment with? um it it Again, it was all quite random and just one thing sort of accidentally led to another really.
00:12:16
Speaker
Well, there were a couple of threads, one of which I'd been shown how to make nettle cordage on a permaculture course like 30 years ago or something. And then I'd always been into food growing and lofty ideas of a degree of self-sufficiency. In the UK, we have allotments, which you can hire out at a sort of peppercorn rent.
00:12:39
Speaker
So yeah, I'd just been interested in food, and you know, from an environmental angle. and And then it was really getting Bonnie the dog. The kids eventually pressured me into getting a dog and i immediately coveted her and she became my dog and we went out.
00:12:55
Speaker
for doing lots and lots of walks in the beautiful Sussex countryside around where we live. And yeah, I was just sort of starting to learn about plants and foraging and yeah, again, just thinking along food lines. And then, you know, I was, I was initially ah using nettle leaves when I was out and about with Bonnie, just cooking up a soup or a stew or something out in the woods and just adding whatever I could find, which was usually nettles are never far away. But then, yeah, i just started thinking about clothing all of a sudden. I just thought, you know i know, what it takes to at least symbolically feed yourself. But clothing, I knew nothing about at all. And I was like, man, if I had to clothe myself from what was around me in this particular landscape, what would I do?
00:13:41
Speaker
And I could see sheep in the field. So wool was an obvious thing that would that would serve one of the the fibres. But yeah, then it was just remembering how to make nettle cordage and playing around with with the nettles. And I suddenly realised that within the bass, the skin of the nettle, which you can use
Craftsmanship vs. Modern Fashion
00:14:01
Speaker
to make rough cordage or twine, um were these amazingly soft white inner fibres, which I'd never really seen before. You have to work a little bit to get to them.
00:14:12
Speaker
um And that's when I suddenly thought, goodness, these are these look like they could make amazing thread. I wonder if it's ever been done. And then set about trying to work out how to do it because I just couldn't really see any immediate answers.
00:14:27
Speaker
other than historically there are finds of nettle from Bronze Age burials and and that sort of thing. Yeah, it's a sort of tantalizing history, but yeah, I just couldn't actually find a piece of nettle cloth to feel and to hold. And so I thought, right, if I'm gonna do that, I'm just gonna have to do it myself.
00:14:47
Speaker
And yeah, that just set set the ball rolling, just a sort of passing thought that then became a grinding obsession.
00:14:57
Speaker
Yeah. Coming back to the nettles that we have in Australia, I think they're Urtica urines or like the the smaller stouter, a little bit disappointing when when you open them up and try and find those threads that you're describing. And I'm not sure.
00:15:10
Speaker
how we would go about weaving or using them to make thread in the same way as, is it urtica diisha, the ones that you're... Yeah, thats that's the one we usually have. there There is a bit of urins around, but yeah, the ones that I work with, I believe, were all dioka.
00:15:26
Speaker
Yeah, i mean, and, you know, nettle's a really big family. I mean, the thing with our nettles is you end up with quite a short fibre by the time you've processed it all. But when I was looking into how it was done,
00:15:39
Speaker
you know I learned about the Nepalese and their Himalayan nettle aloe, which gives a really, really long fibre, more like hemp or something. so yeah And then rami, which is or rammy which is a more one of the nettle fibres that sort of has made it into more mainstream ah commercial kind of clothing, is another in the nettle family. so Most nettles have have a fi a usable fibre of some sort. I think it's just with these things, is it worth the level of labour to get at it?
00:16:12
Speaker
And usually if there's something easier, then that's what you'd go for. And so did you have a background in textiles, Alan? No, not at all. i mean Really? that Yeah, Dylan and I both have um ah art school background, fine art and that sort of thing. But no, I i didn't have any experience with with textiles at all. So in order to realise the project, I just had to pick up the skills as they were needed sort of thing. So, yeah, I mean, I definitely feel like I found my medium, um but definitely not a master at any aspect of it, which is...
00:16:49
Speaker
I think part of the message I want to put out there is it's it's possible to clothe yourself with with fairly rudimentary skills. it's more It's more persistence and um than training or skills.
00:17:01
Speaker
Yeah, ah' I'd love to hear more about that grit and patience that's required to make such a thing, entire dress from Nettle. Can you describe a little bit about what that process entails?
00:17:14
Speaker
Yeah, and in many ways, it's it's the same processes you'd use for the other Basque fibres. Certainly in Europe, our traditional fibre was flax, from which linen was made, but also hemp's played a significant part um and nettle less so. But it's definitely one that has been used and different places in Europe have have longer running traditions of using it. But the way that I ended up doing it um was kind of largely similar where the plant is cut in summer here. So yeah, anytime from sort of usually mid June right the way through to October.
00:17:54
Speaker
But usually by September you've gathered enough because it's quite slow process. So you don't need to harvest. ah huge amounts because it's going to take you all your time to you know even do do a few. but so yeah Cut them um at the base, i don't pull them out the ground. They're nettle spread by roots as much as they do seeds. It's just like a foraging etiquette just to snip them above the surface and don't disturb the roots.
00:18:20
Speaker
And then take the foliage off wearing a pair of leather gloves or using a a little leather square that you wrap around the stem and pull it down and just take the foliage off, which you I usually just leave in situ. But you could use the foliage for feed for plants. It's good food for yourself at the certain times of year.
00:18:40
Speaker
But then, yeah, I take the plants back and lay them on the grass in the garden, which is called dewretting, which is just a posh word for rotting. You're just slow letting the the dew and the microorganisms in the air and the soil um just start breaking down the the gums and pectins and stuff that stick the fibre to the core of the plant.
00:19:02
Speaker
Bass fibres, the fibres on the outside of the plant, like in the skin. um And it doesn't take a very long, a week or two weeks, sort of play around with that. And you can do it in water, it's a shorter, quicker way of doing it.
00:19:17
Speaker
But I just, yeah, just try and do every step. as I try and use nature to do as many of the processes as possible. And so rettings, yeah, easy, just leaving on the grass, turning it every day.
00:19:29
Speaker
And then a week or two, you don't really notice much different to the plant visually, but it has changed internally. And then you can store it, dry it and store it.
00:19:40
Speaker
And we've learned collectively that the longer you leave it with any of the fibres, actually, the better the fibre becomes. It sort of continues to break down gently. in storage and then yeah you just peel off the the fiber and at that point it comes away in lovely long ribbons and i usually work like five good size nettles i mean i'm i'm usually using nettles that are about five foot high and about pinky finger thickness seems to be quite a a good size and then yeah i roll the fibers in my hands to soften them up the bundle of fibers
00:20:14
Speaker
And then the extra step that nettles need, that hemp and flax don't, is I then scrape it to try and get rid of this sort of outer bark, which of comes away as a dust.
00:20:26
Speaker
And then in that process, the fiber is sort of becoming shorter and breaking. And then you end up with a pile of different lengths, bits of fairly clean fiber.
00:20:38
Speaker
And then the final step is just to i lay it on a wool carder and card it as I would wool so brushing it and that gets rid of the rest of the dust and then you end you end up with a sort of mixed fiber length from sometimes as long as as long as your hand sometimes sort finger length but just card that all together and then roll it up and it's it's soft and fluffy um a bit like when you've carded wool in fact and uh Yeah. And then just it's ready to start spinning.
00:21:09
Speaker
It's very it's very basic. You can with like a butter knife and a pair of wool carders, you can you can do the whole process. the The thing about nettles is it feels like it's really resistant to mechanization, which I think is part of its.
00:21:26
Speaker
romance. it's um It's definitely pointing the way back to doing things in a different way. There have been many many attempts over the years to try and commercialise nettle growing.
00:21:42
Speaker
And it is possible, but it's just yeah it's just it's just expensive and in the cutthroat margins of commercial fibre growing. Nettles just feels it's resisting and pointing back to an older way of doing things.
00:21:58
Speaker
the The message the Nettles hold within them is that if you're going to unlock the secrets, you're going to have to slow down and get into their their way of doing it.
00:22:09
Speaker
Yeah, beautiful. I feel the same way about goats. They're just absolutely obstinately resistant to being factory farmed or even milked if you're not their friend. So I love that message that the nettle is also bringing to us.
00:22:23
Speaker
And my my question, Alan, and especially as I watch the film is how did you create space in your life to embark on such a a slow and methodical mission? One of the themes that um but it comes across in the film is, yeah, once once you've kind of realised it isn't going to happen quickly, then you then you fall into the pace of it. So, I mean, it took seven years because it was something that was just done in little pockets of time.
00:22:51
Speaker
The advantage of nettles being a fairly short fibres, you can carry the bundle of fibres in your hand. um And I did a lot of spinning on the drop spindle. So I would just have fibre and a spindle on me at all times um and then just use all these pockets of time, which turn out to be quite significant, actually, over the course of the week.
00:23:14
Speaker
I can spin and walk. So whenever I'd go out with Bonnie for a dog walk, I would often have a bundle of fibres in my pocket which needed hand rolling. ah would then do some spinning and then I'd harvest more nettles and bring those back. So a lot of it I was able to do on the move as part of other things. So the dog walking was a central thing. So that was often the mainstay of when i i'd I'd get stuff done.
00:23:41
Speaker
And then, yeah, just, ah you know, it's amazing how much time time there is, you know, literally waiting for kettles to boil or pots to boil. earth You can just spin. And I think the whole process really kind of gave me insight into how we would have dealt collectively and communally with with these jobs in the past. And, you know, I think...
00:24:06
Speaker
why spinning became largely women's work at certain times or places because it it is work that can be picked up and put down so it's got flexibility to it I was working from home and yeah just using small pockets of time and it was a very incremental growth what that's why it took so long And Dylan, for you as as the filmmaker, as the artist, as as our eyes looking in on this process, how did you go about filming with Alan and what kind of themes were you picking up and reflecting back and infusing into your creation?
00:24:44
Speaker
For me, this was a really different way of making a film. So um maybe I should explain, but this is how I make a living as well. And I've been making films for 25 plus years, whether from art school or whether activist filmmaking or whether films for NGOs or charities or for television.
00:25:03
Speaker
But this was a really, really different way and a lovely way as a huge revelation for me, this way of working. And the big piece of it was the time. So lots of people have sort of said, how could you be so patient to make a film over so many years? But that was the part that I enjoyed the most because it's the classic kind of money versus time.
00:25:24
Speaker
equation and generally in the our industrial model of society with TV just like with fabrics and fashion you know time is money and therefore the pressure is always on to make something as quickly as possible because you're paid by the day you know in a film like this if I was making a film earlier I was talking about i was doing something for BBC One if I was doing a film for them they would be like oh we've got this great story of this guy can you just go and shoot for a day and you've got a couple of days to edit it off you go And then when you've got that kind of pressure, you know, you basically have to conceive of an idea and and just shoot the idea. And it's this very inflexible way of working in a way because you when you talk to someone, you're just there to sort of produce them to say what you need them to say so you can make the film as quickly as you can.
00:26:13
Speaker
All right, so that that's that model, and that's how I have worked in different ways over the years. But in this way, and because it wasn't funded, that was and enabled a huge freedom. And because it was open-ended, we didn't, as I said earlier, we didn't have a ah sort of a huge concept of this is what we're going to do early on.
00:26:34
Speaker
It was just we were filming because it was fun. And because people were engaging with it, the the early films we made, people really enjoyed and we just put them out freely. And so that was really nice. But on a practical level, obviously, I was working elsewhere as well just to kind of pay the bills. But, you know, Al doesn't live that far from me.
00:26:51
Speaker
So I was able to just go down there. on occasion and just film the next piece of the process and the slowness was wonderful because it meant that we we had kind of work worked together because I could film him doing part of the process we could talk very naturally there wasn't a kind of a sense of an interview where I need him to say some things we would just the conversation go all over the shop right about anything and everything And then i would come home, i would, over the next little while, I'd cut something together. i would also share that with Al.
00:27:24
Speaker
And then it just meant that there was time for contemplation. So the the piece could become what it needed to become or wanted to become. the form of it could take shape in a very natural way.
00:27:37
Speaker
And it meant that the ideas that we were thinking about and exploring, again, could go deeper. It was like a sense of a circling around that I think is really, really was was revelatory for me and really enjoyable. And it suits suits me and my character as well. If I've got time...
00:27:53
Speaker
I'm not necessarily good at in the instant response kind of you know thing. If I've got time to think, it sort does it kind of settles with me and I'll think about it and I'll go, oh, that's really interesting. That question or that theme that we've been talking about, themes could kind of rise to the surface around you know the value of craft and creativity.
00:28:14
Speaker
around what the nettles were teaching, around the sort of the passing of the seasons and getting to know a particular wood where the nettles grew because because we would return there year after year.
00:28:26
Speaker
so it was a sort of a sense of a deepening time gives you that maybe in a one-off conversation, it wouldn't be there because this whole thing is about relationships for me. It's about ah the dualism, the kind of the dialogue between between me and Alan, between Alan and the nettle between me and the material. And when there's the consistency, when there's ah when there's time for ideas to surface, I think we can go a bit deeper. And I think that's, I like to think that's what the Nettle Dress, the film shows.
00:28:58
Speaker
So beautifully said. Putting my most idealistic, whingy hat on and wondering into why can't we why can't we make our own clothes that take such devotion and patience? And why can't we engage? And indulge in more cinema that is such a ah slow and steady and genuine relational creation? Like what, I mean, I know the answer to this, but in going through this process, yourselves, you know, respectively making the dress and making the film, have you glimpsed or grasped up more opportunities to to pursue your work and pursue your passion with more mindfulness and slowness? Like where are those
00:29:43
Speaker
opportunities for any of us, I suppose, to to really slow the pace in our lives. It's something i you know I think a lot about.
00:29:54
Speaker
And you know one of one of the things I've realised is it's just there's no way of doing this within the current paradigm. I think we feel we can feel a so of romantic feeling connection to to so to slowness and more time because we live in just such a hyper fast time.
00:30:15
Speaker
Well food growing and gardening and and and the making of the dress and textiles is that it's you know is the realisation that how we've done these things for the longest time is very different to the time that we find ourselves in now.
00:30:33
Speaker
you know we're we're living in the anomaly so it's it's really difficult to get a sense of how these things were done so making textiles by hand is a huge undertaking without mechanisation.
00:30:48
Speaker
You know, that's why I love the name of your podcast, because i mean, I've heard it said that what we've done with industrialisation and fossil fuels and and energy and power is we've been able to make incredibly efficient systems.
00:31:04
Speaker
Well, efficient in the terms of the resources we're extracting, but we've given up a resilient structure, which by definition isn't economies of scale and efficiency. It's a different model and it's like you what you gain in one, you lose in the other.
00:31:19
Speaker
I feel that there was a time when all cloak cloth was hand-woven. And there's places in the world where it's still done like that, done very, very simple technology, backstrap looms, spinning is part of it.
00:31:36
Speaker
So there's there's like echoes of that way of doing it around. But there's no there's no business model or way of making a living in our current structure doing it, doing it that way, because we're just competing together.
00:31:50
Speaker
against the scale of the the way it's produced. But the downside of the way it's produced now, which there are many and there's many advantages, is just that we've just created a system ah of complete overproduction and overconsumption.
00:32:03
Speaker
And, you know, it's like it's insane, you know, like how many billions of items of clothing are produced a year and how, you know, how many billions of those garments are in landfill um within the first year.
00:32:19
Speaker
which clothing was never like that in the past. Clothing was one of the most precious things that you could own. I mean, it would often, you know, building a house can often be quicker than making an item of clothing. It's that slower slower process. And because it is so slow and because spinning is such a large part of the process, you definitely get the sense that people generally, collectively, would have been doing a lot more
Balancing Technology and Natural Experiences
00:32:48
Speaker
spinning. That would have been part of everyone's day, would would have been spinning. And we would be making garments that were designed to last.
00:32:57
Speaker
They were hard-wearing and incredibly precious things, which would be worth a lot of money. And that realisation, when lot of our... um our knowledge of textiles from the deep past were because people were buried in their clothing, which again, just really gives me a sense of like how important that work that that is. i mean, you would think if clothes were so hard fought for, you would just bury people naked and keep the clothing, but people were often buried
00:33:31
Speaker
in their clothing because your clothing is so closely, you know, it's the thing that we identify and present ourselves to the world and protect ah you know and protect ourselves. They're such special, our relationship with textiles is is so deep, you know.
00:33:48
Speaker
Most people, if they keep something of it of a parent or a grandparent or someone who's died, their piece of clothing is the most tangible link to the spirit of that person and you would sort of savor those items and keep them with you.
00:34:04
Speaker
To circle back round to it, it can't be about um trying to fit it into a current system. It's like it just needs to be done for completely different values. It's like my friend Mark says about growing vegetables. he says that, you know, when you go and get your food from a supermarket, it's like what you gain in convenience, you lose in connection and resilience. You know, if you if you grow food,
00:34:30
Speaker
you learn about loss, you learn about things not working and you have that overview of the process and the connection um to a piece of piece of land, a place. Over time you've you've got your hands in the soil, you can see what's going on in there, what the what the livingness of that soil is and and it's just a completely deeper and experience.
00:34:54
Speaker
even though it's hard work and and it's the and it's the same with with the clothing. It's like the relationship of with a piece of clothing that you've even had some small input in altering or patching or darning or something. Immediately your relationship to that piece of clothing is really different. It feels like there's some of you in it.
00:35:13
Speaker
And I just feel that the... you know, what's fueling wanton destruction, overproduction, is us trying to fill this meaning gap within us, because things are just presented to us. So we want more because the the hit is shorter and less enduring, whereas the creating stuff, it's it's not going to be financially viable. It's going to take a lot of your time, but your relationship to that and what you get back from from the process is ah is a whole different order.
00:35:47
Speaker
i i feel that the direction of travel just by necessity is going to be us working back. in the same way that we've worked towards where we've got to now. I mean, I think i think that we will have to learn to um take on both in food growing and in fibre textile production is, you know, the trajectory has been to take people out of the mix and replace it with machinery.
00:36:16
Speaker
and I think just as we come down the energy curve on the other side and have to start reining in this process, huge power input that we've had in our culture through the form of fossil fuels is we're just going to have to start replacing machinery with people again in areas where there is um there is human benefit to be gained textiles fiber and clothing is one of those areas as is gardening It's just much more efficient.
00:36:46
Speaker
And while it's efficient in a different way, we can pack a lot more diverse biodiversity into a given area. i love that idea of living in the anomaly. I mean, I don't love it, but it's it's a great way of couching it.
00:37:00
Speaker
And I'm thinking of like the promise of all of the productivity apps and technology at large, it promises to give us back our time, really. And I think, well, is it giving us back our time and what are we going to do with that time? Or is it a ah trap that we're then um investing more and more into the management of all of these tools and technologies, but never actually planting our hands back in the soil or touching brushing up against a nettle and feeling that that sensory aliveness and awakening. So i wonder, this is a question for both of you, how you draw lines around, you know, what tools you are going to engage with and what you're not. And knowing that convenience can come at the cost of of connection.
00:37:42
Speaker
What is the consciousness you bring to that? um its it's I might only hesitate because i struggle with this, Katie. I mean, I'm completely screen addicted, you know, um and I hate that about myself, but it's so hard. Human versus algorithm.
00:37:58
Speaker
So um I'm doing my best with that side of things because I think that's what we're talking about. It's, you know, it's a life that has become a mediated. through a screen and it's obviously I mean I was talking to a friend the other day who was using the phrase techno-feudalism which maybe you guys know already but this idea that tech bro overlords have basically created this world which they now just rent out to us and we're just we're in rented private space you know having said that you know um The social media has been wonderful for even with this film has been amazing for building community. So that's they've kind of got us there.
00:38:36
Speaker
So it has been really useful in that sense to speak to you. I mean, I use technology all the time, so I can't really, you know, my my my job is using really nice cameras and editing software.
00:38:48
Speaker
So it's, I can't escape that element of it. um But I do my best to get out and swim in the sea and walk in the woods and and talk to my friends, you know, face to face.
00:39:00
Speaker
um And it's it's it's crazy to me that it's actually, I have to think of that. i have to make the effort to do that. You know what i mean? It used to be, um just pick up the phone and call someone or go around and have a cup of tea out of the blue but that's not the case anymore that's not the life i'm living unless i really make an effort to make it do you what i mean more and more it is mediated through screens the only other thing that comes to mind and and this is just more about the storytelling part i did think because having made a lot of activist films isn't one of the ways i knew al from back in the day was we we did a lot of um
00:39:40
Speaker
sort of eco activism, you know, kind of stopping, trying to stop roads being built, living in trees, that kind of earth first style activism that was happening in the nineties in the UK. And I was doing a lot of films around that.
00:39:52
Speaker
And I just, I guess I had this sort of naive idea that if if only I would could show the world, you know, this what's happening, that that people would just wake up and, and you know, we'll figure it out and change things. You know, I've come to think that that was a until little naive and that the model, the way of telling stories that i think about now is is a bit different. And with the nettle dress, certainly,
00:40:16
Speaker
Because when we made the film, we had such a temptation to kind of we had this beautiful story and it was so easy. It would have been so easy just to kind of load it with facts and figures. And this is the state of the fashion industry. And this is what Carbon's doing. And these supply chains are like that. We could have easily made that kind of film. And I've made those films in the past and I probably will again.
00:40:37
Speaker
um But we made a very conscious decision not to do that and to make a film that's much more about embodied experience. and just And it's not demanding attention. It's just inviting attention. It's just saying, come along with us. Let's just just walk with Al and just follow this process.
00:40:55
Speaker
And I think that maybe that's closer to maybe how how we need to move in terms of how we tell stories. and Because it it ultimately is about the doing. It's about getting away from the screen and trying out spinning or trying out gardening or going for a walk or those very embodied stories.
The Dual Nature of 'The Nettle Dress'
00:41:14
Speaker
experiences You know what I mean? i mean, one of the reasons why, ah you know, it was a beautiful thing to make a film about was that it was both highly practical, you know, very, very practical in terms of this. This is how you go from a plant to a piece of cloth and a piece of clothing, you know, and he's these are the steps. And it's incredibly practical thing.
00:41:37
Speaker
Very real, very material thing. But at the same time, it's entirely metaphorical. It's entirely symbolic. And it sort of throws up ideas around what's valuable, you know, what's valuable in life and what should we pay attention to?
00:41:52
Speaker
and and you know, can can we model a simpler life which is more fulfilling? yeah You know, and um what's the role of craft and kind and creativity and and nature and in that?
00:42:03
Speaker
So it's sort of those much, for me, much deeper questions questions. could emerge through this very, very, i mean, ultimately the film is a kind of how-to. It is a about the craft and about the process, but it also, it raises up these, I think, really quite deep questions.
00:42:23
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, now you mention it, the film is severely lacking in combine harvester stock footage and inids of a factory production line tragedy montages. But I do really enjoy hearing about those creative choices that you've made And obviously, my curiosity is peaked around, you know, your evolution as activists, I'm assuming both of you, you know, creatives and people with something to say, and coming to this place of, um of showing and inviting rather than bashing people over the head with so many more horrific stats.
00:42:56
Speaker
So, of course, I love hearing about, you know, how folks like you are patterning this into your own life, given that it it starts with us and there's such a tension when you're a creative and a storyteller because you're the fly on the wall and the observer and not always the participant. I mean, maybe rarely the participant if you've got that penchant for like watching something and communicating about it. But again, a question for both of you, like,
00:43:22
Speaker
How does this look in your, you know, to use a permaculture term zone zero or so zone zero zero, like your inner and immediate sphere? What is that in your life? And is there anything you can speak to about that that balance or that lack of balance?
00:43:38
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you know, one of the one of the themes um that came out in the film strongly is I kept referring to Nettles giving me a gift of like the the skills that were being demanded or were needed in order to carry out that transformation from plant into cloth were all these things that I didn't i didn't really at the outset appreciate exactly how how fundamental those things were going to become just to my sense of well-being and and being able to cope with loss and ah grief, which is another theme and in the film.
00:44:20
Speaker
I think one of the resonances of the film, well, obviously we're all humans, we all we all experience loss and grief. But I think maybe more obliquely a sense of that we we collectively are feeling of a of a sense of loss or or grief with with nature and what's happening to to our ecosystems and you know something that we're all we're all complicit in.
00:44:44
Speaker
mean, me as much as anyone else. So going out foraging for nettles was ah gift of being out in nature and starting to become more familiar with my more immediate ah vicinity and starting to to read the landscape of where nettles were to be found. and So yeah, that that that was that was one of the gifts and just being out and having time away from so of modernity to a degree degree, just it being simple, just walking and looking and harvesting and getting in touch with what was happening in in the in the countryside.
00:45:28
Speaker
But then also the just the the unexpected power of of handwork. I mean, I've always enjoyed making stuff, but I said somewhere that it never, even though the work a lot of the work is really repetitive, it never felt like drudgery because it was something that I was deriving meaning and well-being from. you know and as as soon as, if that had shifted into I was collecting nettles,
00:45:56
Speaker
to make and sell, it would have been it would have felt like exploitation. It would would have flipped the flip that around completely. But because this was it was almost part of a meditative process and it was free from that needing to fit into that conceptual framework,
00:46:16
Speaker
I didn't judge it in those terms. It was just like, oh man, even five minutes of spinning just really calmed me down. It's just, it's like a sort practical meditation where you're through the losses um discussed in the in the film. I think just that sense of there being some incremental movement towards a goal, like a teleological point that I was heading to, and it didn't really matter how long it took to get there um because the getting there was what was actually the nourishing part.
00:46:50
Speaker
um you know And at certain times it felt like a bit of a feeling in the pit of your stomach, like, oh, my God, do I really want to even reach the end of this? but but what will i What will I do then? It's it's just become part of the thing. And then my friend Sharon, who's Canadian, and she she makes hope has made her complete wardrobe from plants and fibres that...
00:47:16
Speaker
She grows or is foraged or knows the farmer whose sheep it belonged to and unpicking old garments and using components. Now, she talks about how we maybe we should look at look at textile production in terms of curated efficiencies.
00:47:32
Speaker
Like there's some things which are which are just more, you you don't gain as much intrinsic joy from. So perhaps those things can be automated to a degree.
00:47:42
Speaker
But there's other areas which are really meaningful and are really enjoyable to do. For example, um i was looking at an outfit called Chico Flax in California who are growing flax. And similar to here, there just isn't the infrastructure anymore to to process and do turning flax into linen on on a commercial scale. But they're sort of finding this midway point where they're they're using simple scutching tools to do the first part of the process. So an electric motor where the plant sent through a little rotary thing, it's just hand fed. It's just a few hundred dollars, which they've got made and they use in their barn.
00:48:23
Speaker
But the, the, the part where you comb these long flax fibers through the teeth of these hackles is like, um, akin to, to sort of brushing your hair.
00:48:34
Speaker
It goes from this of tangled disorderly bundle of fibers into these silky, beautifully aligned bundles of fibers ready for spinning.
00:48:45
Speaker
um And they just said they that they all enjoy that part of the process so much that they've not They're not worried about the fact that there isn't machinery to do that part. They use a bit of machinery to do the the boring, dusty bit.
00:48:58
Speaker
And then the hackling part, it's a couple of weeks of working collectively together, just like combing long hair, um which they find meditative and enjoyable. So, yeah, it's how do we...
00:49:12
Speaker
reduce our impact, not in a sense of of of it being having to give up a luxury or lose something. It's like reframing it to go to think about it like, wow, this being more involved in the process is actually going to feed me on on a whole whole other set of levels where, you know, I'm sort of, when I do get free time,
00:49:38
Speaker
I'm grateful that I've got these projects to then spend that time on. It's, um you know, if I was freed up from them, I'd be, well, I've got this empty time. What do I fill it with?
00:49:52
Speaker
We're feeding ourselves digitally, but perhaps not that, you know, like Dylan says, there's many, many advantages and, you know, the aspect of sharing this knowledge and linking up with people all around the world has been, there a real plus of the technology.
00:50:06
Speaker
But I think there's a, there's a, there's a danger that that becomes the source of fulfillment, which is just not of the same depth um that that can be gained through processes which are not difficult to master, but in their ordinaryness and sort of men mundane-ness on one level, they they actually seem to act as a tonic on our nervous system I imagine because collectively for the longest period of time, we would gather communally to do these things.
00:50:42
Speaker
And that's deep, that's deep within us. there you know there's There's nothing more natural than sitting in a spinning circle, sharing stories and laughs and the social interplay that's enabled by this gentle work, which doesn't require huge levels of focus, concentration.
00:51:02
Speaker
and I think that... human being that's that's kind of that's a really sweet spot for us maybe we can use our smart calendars to schedule in those times and reminders to gather together and switch off our screens and yeah use our hands is that something you have been doing in community as well Alan Yes. I mean, and, you know, that's one of the things that was really important. I think one of, you know, I just feel feel in my artistic careers, there's doors that feel firmly shut and you've got to push really hard against.
00:51:38
Speaker
And then there's other doors that the slightest of touch and they swing open and you fall into it. And I felt gardening's like that, that the community around growing is is is one of this generous giving communities where people aren't threatened by ah someone else becoming a good gardener. It's like the more good gardeners there are, the better it is for everyone.
00:52:01
Speaker
um and And so it was with textiles. I just felt this incredible generosity of spirit of people really wanting to share their skills and encouraging you to to be able to achieve no you know what you needed to do. And there was always someone to ask either in person in or online to answer the questions and you know i just thought well the doors that have swung open easiest are obviously the ones that are inviting me in and growing and textiles felt like these two different areas and then
00:52:35
Speaker
It was only latterly that I realised, oh my goodness, they're actually part and parcel of the same thing. Fibre production was growing, it was gardening, it was farming. these These were activities that happened as all part of the same sphere of how we would we would fill our time.
00:52:56
Speaker
and in fact how so many of our um saints days and hot national holidays and ah built around the different stages you know harvest time when you need to gather everyone together into the fields to process and then the dark winter months where you would be spinning, these fundamental processes of feeding and clothing yourselves really were the the hallmarks of a more agrarian way of living and um dictated so much of the the festivals and gatherings and and processes were built around these things. And and and and it was thus for hundreds oh and thousands of years.
00:53:40
Speaker
Coming back to the film, I feel like it is also... its own kind of technology of
Community and Connection through Film
00:53:47
Speaker
togethering. I've been two screenings or watch parties or whatever you want to call them and yeah, got people together to watch the film and drank nettle and wear green and talk about it afterwards. And I'm just wondering how how you've been maybe surprised or delighted with some of the ways that the film has taken on its own life and where that piece of art has gone.
00:54:11
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that's been absolutely the gift of this film. um It's been been absolutely beautiful. And I think it actually relates to the last question about sort of having a regenerative practice and how to kind of sustain this these this sort of practice. And it's it's because it was the film is made freely and made with love and it's repaid us in so many connections and conversations and just lovely, beautiful moments.
00:54:40
Speaker
And what i love the idea that with it with a piece of creative work, that it's on a sort of continuum, that it's not, it didn't finish when Al made the dress, finished the dress or when i finished the film, that it continues out, it continues rippling out and kind of rippling back to us.
00:54:57
Speaker
I mean, Al was just saying he was at the screening last night, which looked amazing. I saw the pictures, but, you know, it's already, it's still, it continues to, ripple out, which is which is wonderful. And I think a big piece with the distribution of the film was this idea of cinema, was the idea of communal screenings.
00:55:17
Speaker
So quite early on, ah we decided not to put it online for quite some time. Now it's available on online, but for for a long time, we we just... were saying, you know, we we only really want to do communal screenings just because to kind of almost force people out.
00:55:33
Speaker
And that's been the most amazing thing to sort of had to be sat with people. just think it's it just feels so important that the sort of the power of watching something together and also then the the kind of buzz in the room and how and then the conversations after and the connections that are made.
00:55:52
Speaker
So that's been a really big part of it. And we um right from the beginning when we sort of We didn't have a distributor, so we you know literally did it kind of one cinema at a time, in fact, one seat at a time to start with.
00:56:04
Speaker
you know the first and The first screening we did, you know it was kind of like watching the you know how you can go online and go to buy a ticket and you can see the seat plan. And it was like, oh, we sold another ticket. You know, there's that kind of thing.
00:56:16
Speaker
it was literally a win one at a time telling your friends and friends telling friends. And I think it's rippled out. I love the sort of sense ofcent of circles of community that it's it's allowed us to see in a way.
00:56:29
Speaker
And it does relate to the permaculture thing you were saying earlier about Zero Zero. The first audience was me. And then the next audience was Alan. and And when I showed it to him for the first time, just the two of us.
00:56:40
Speaker
and then um And then we showed it to Al's family. you know And that was a really beautiful and moving screening. And that they also gave us a lot of great feedback. And then when we showed it for the first time in Brighton, it was like all our family, all our friends, and then lots of people in the gardening fiber community.
00:56:58
Speaker
and then it's And then it kind of went out like that. And it's just it's it's that sense of friends telling friends. and And it's just grown out really organically like that from from then on. It's two years in and we're still getting...
00:57:10
Speaker
booked all the time for screenings in different places. yeah Years ago when I did activist film, quite sort crude propagandistic films really, and and we we had a group called Conscious Cinema where we would show the films to activists.
00:57:27
Speaker
And it wasn't growing the movement in any sense. It wasn't like ah inviting anyone in to to kind of grow a movement. It was really just preaching to the converted. um literally. But that had value. And that's one thing I really carry with me ever since. It's just the the value of reflecting back to a community how awesome they are or when they've done something amazing.
00:57:49
Speaker
And so, you know, and in this sense, it was reflecting back to Al actually, just look at this amazing thing you did, which he probably didn't need to hear. But, you know, nonetheless, it there was a mirror in that sense. But then it was a mirror to the community.
00:58:01
Speaker
And then it's been a mirror, I think, or a way of celebrating the ah craft and fiber community. And then a lot of, again, as it sort of echoes out, we found a lot of artists come in, a lot of other crafts, you know, carpenters and potters love the film.
00:58:18
Speaker
And then a lot of gardeners and herbalists. It's that sense of an ever-widening circle of friends. And I have this sense that you internalize it and it's more meaningful when you can share it.
00:58:30
Speaker
You know, that sort of sense of a synthesis that happens internally when you go to watch something alongside people and maybe have a chat about it after. i just feel like it's somehow so much stronger than if you watch it alone on your sofa or on your laptop or something, on your phone even.
00:58:46
Speaker
Perish the thought. Yeah. Such a solid foundation from which to do anything really. This invitational, oh, you want to see it? Cool. Let's, let's watch it together rather than having this thing like foisted on a whole bunch of people.
00:59:01
Speaker
it's like we are actively like I want to see it I have a yearning to see it and then waiting for when it's going to be available you know in my area and who can come and watch it with me so I think that somehow you've like encultured this this film and how it's how it's distributed and how it's enjoyed quite magically really so that's been a huge experience for me and a lot of other people in this community and we're really really grateful for all of the time and and energy and love that you've put in.
00:59:32
Speaker
And perhaps to wrap up, Alan, I'd love to do like a where are they now status check on the dress. How's the dress faring? The dress is faring well. I've got it right here. um i One thing we've we've done all the way through is bring the dress with us when we do when we're there in person with the film and the dress gets passed around the audience. like it goes out and it's little crowd surf and um yeah really encourage people to feel the weight and feel the texture of it. And it's been amazing. it it yeah It's just been softened by hundreds, probably thousands now of of loving hands.
01:00:15
Speaker
that that that That's really nice. And, you know, I'm still still at it. Soon after finishing the dress, I made ah ah shirt from nettle that I didn't end up using in the dress and nettle that I dyed.
01:00:31
Speaker
naturally dyed along the way and I'd also been spinning up flax that I grow and hemp that friends have grown and and spun that and dyed that so I made a a shirt which I often wear to screenings as well and I'm still spinning nettle I'm still spinning and I'm working towards another you know amassing enough fibers to go again and make another garment I'm not exactly sure um what I'm going to make, but I'm also spinning and dyeing. And, you know, one of the one one of the activities that's come off the the back of it or certainly been amplified by it is this sort of connection to this growing localised fibre shed style fibre revival. And so,
01:01:20
Speaker
ah So, yeah, connecting with lots of interesting people and there's loads of exciting things going on. And I occasionally do nettle workshops or flat work, flat workshops and try and encourage people to, you know, to have a go to to to get in there. and use gardens and allotments and stuff to grow ah small portion just to, yeah, to sort of familiar, familiarize themselves with the process and, you know, feel, feel part of it. So the like Dylan says, the magic just keeps on, keeps on happening. It's um all the more delightful because the whole thing just felt largely,
01:02:05
Speaker
fated on one hand and completely random and accidental on the other. The making of the dress for me personally and everything that was going on around that time was a very sort of internal process. It was very quiet. My my world was quite small.
01:02:20
Speaker
um And then since the dress, since the film was finished and it were out and about with it, it became a very different experience, a very outward connecting with people, which, um yeah, was was such a blessing. you know, without the film, the dress would have just, you know, been sitting on a mannequin or hanging up behind a door. But the films just allowed it to have this whole...
01:02:48
Speaker
wider, connecting life. So, yeah, you know, magic, fairy tales is definitely one of the themes of the of the films, one of the strong themes. And it feels like the whole endeavour just seems to be continuing along slightly fairy tale lines that you know magic can happen in all unexpected ways. But you know it sounds a bit trite, but there was just a sense of like following following our hearts on this one.
01:03:20
Speaker
If that kind of momentum and magic can happen in the context of a film, I'm just thinking... what might happen in the world at large if we commit to what we really truly want to do deep down, perhaps that is a good thing to follow.
The Fulfillment of Following True Passions
01:03:35
Speaker
you know, this is a thinly veiled self-help podcast, so I like to bring bring it home to those kind of things. But I'm just feeling like, you know, if that's if that's your experience creating this thing that was not financially or in any way logical in this paradigm, then maybe we need to push through some of those logics to find, yeah, a new place to be.
01:03:56
Speaker
Beautifully put. I think I couldn't add to that. that's Yeah, exactly. completely agree. And so is the film available for people to watch in Australia at the moment?
01:04:09
Speaker
It is, yeah. if If people want to go to netledress.org, you'll find there like wherever wherever there's screenings. But this this it's online at the moment as well. So it's available for everyone. And if you want to put on a community communal screening, you can do from that link. But also if you want to get in touch, just um yeah do so from the website or net address film on Instagram.
01:04:31
Speaker
Fantastic. I'll link all of those things in the show notes. And it has just been such a pleasure to spend this time with both of you, Dylan and Alan, um in such admiration of your work and how you are in the world.
01:04:44
Speaker
So thanks for joining me on Riskillians. Thank you so much for having us. I've enjoyed every minute of it. Huge but pleasure, Katie. And we love the podcast as well. So keep it up.
01:04:57
Speaker
That's so lovely. Thank you.
01:05:02
Speaker
That was Dylan Howitt and Alan Brown of the epic and enchanting documentary, The Nettle Dress, which you can currently stream wherever you are in the world, though I'd recommend watching it with friends or even hosting a local event because something quite magical happens when you do.
01:05:19
Speaker
Forage all the links in the show notes. Feel free to share this episode with a friend who's into herbs or weaving or cinema and catch you next Monday for another casually world-rocking conversation.
01:05:31
Speaker
Thanks for listening.