FILM - The Nettle Dress

2023

1h 8m

Textile artist Allan Brown spends seven years making a dress by hand, using only the fibre of locally foraged stinging nettles. This is ‘hedgerow couture’, the greenest of slow fashion and also his medicine. It’s how he survives the death of his wife Alex and how he finds a beautiful way to honour her.

'Grasping the Nettle' is at the heart of this story. The challenge of making zero carbon clothing means relearning ancient crafts: foraging, processing, spinning, weaving, cutting and sewing. Making a dress this way becomes devotional and healing.

‘While making the dress over all these years, I felt like I was being transformed by the nettles rather than the other way around,’ says Allan. ‘When Alex was ill and going through chemotherapy, as soon as I began spinning yarn, I felt calmer. It became much more than just a piece of cloth; it's been woven with the stories of people who know and love you.’

The dress is made up of 14,400 feet of thread, each one representing hours of loving attention. In the film the dress is finally worn in the woods where the nettles were picked, by Oonagh, one of Allan's daughters.

Director Dylan Howitt says: ‘This is a story about the deep value of creativity and imagination, and a slow, mindful craft that is more in tune with the natural world.’