Melissa's Kilt

Melissa inherited the kilt from her grandmother. It is approximately 60 years old. While being stored in a cupboard in Melissa’s home, it has gradually been eaten away by moths.

Repairer Elise Cakebread used traditional mending techniques including felting, darning and stitching, albeit in unconventional ways. These techniques used would have been commonplace in Melissa’s grandmother’s era. Through the repair, the worn nature of the garment has been enhanced. Rather than hiding the repairs, Cakebread has conceived of them as a rejuvenating. They act like tufts of new growth breaking through the surface of the fabric.

Design Repairer: Elise Cakebread

Elise is a Melbourne based textile-based artist and designer who founded the textile studio Cakebread in 2013.

Her practice is driven by experimentation and exploration within traditional textile processes and techniques. Driven by experimentation within traditional textile processes and techniques, her work focuses on the tensions created by the unusual or unexpected contrasts that emerge between materials, forms, colours, textures and scale. Through these methods she explores ideas of materiality, tactility, craft, disposability and the ornamental. Her cross-disciplinary approach gives life to sculptural work, decorative objects, products and soft furnishings.

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Melissa's Kilt. Repaired by Elise Cakebread. Photos by Lee Grant. Image copyright Hotel Hotel.