In Soft Slow, Margaret Hull’s work explores themes of sustainability, the gendered body, and interconnectedness. With a practice rooted in materiality, she examines the significance of textiles and their relationship to womanhood and caregiving. Margaret and I discussed her examination of the home-sewn garment through her Zero Waste and Banners series, where literal and abstract interpretations of garment construction pose questions around sourcing, labor, and waste within the global fashion industry. Through her use of natural materials and dyes, Hull also considers the ecology of textiles, their lifespan, and how working within a fibershed can create a sustainable framework for production and consumption.
–Shelley Selim
MARGARET HULL x SHELLEY SELIM
Shelley Selim (SS): I’m curious what you value about working with textiles and fibers. How does your chosen media inform your work?
Margaret Hull (MH): I have been working in textiles since college. It’s a medium that I have always had an affinity for. It’s a relationship that is obviously tactile…I really do need to handle my materials to develop an understanding of them, an understanding of how they behave, how they feel, how they’ll feel against the skin.
Textiles have a significant history globally and I’ve always been attracted to the history of specific prints and origins of materials, as well, and this feeds into my practice when I’m starting a new project. I’m thinking about material-sourcing in regard to geography and what previous use or histories might be attached to those items. I often work with secondhand fabrics, and most recently on these banners that I’ve been making, I use secondhand cotton sheets that I’m dyeing with plant dyes and then sewing together.
I like to consider a framework that one of my undergrad professors presented: she talked about the transition from line to plane, so building cloth either via loop structure, like knitting, or through interlacing in woven structure. It’s a very poetic way of thinking about textiles—the ability to build form through line and plane.
SS: That’s interesting to me, because, looking at your past series like the Zero Waste Blouses, it feels like you’re transitioning now from form to plane with the banners. Could you spe in particular?
MH: Overall, my research has evolved from exploring a garment’s function and aesthetics on screen and in live performance to presenting garments on their own and in installations. When I moved away from New Orleans in 2014, I was beginning to make video works that examined the relationship between architecture (both public and private spaces) and the gendered body. I designed custom garments that allowed for freedom of movement and self-expression, while also signifying our interconnectedness within a larger system of dress. I developed a framework for contextualizing garments beginning in the design process, which has evolved and continues in my research.
I enjoy exploring conventions and approaches to everyday dress. And today, I’m moving back and forth between making garments and banners out of zero-waste patterns that I design. The banners are essentially the pattern pieces that I would typically cut and sew into a three-dimensional form that’s a garment. Instead, I’m piecing them together into roughly a six-foot-by-six-foot textile that’s suspended from the ceiling. My goal is to present the patterns and abstract them in a way that could be potentially more legible, but that is also not necessarily directly tied to the garment because it’s not functional as clothing.
I chose this form partly because I’m interested in iteration, and that’s something that has defined my practice. I am captivated with the old but obsessed with finding new ways to make objects that are more intentional, conscious of material source and use. I tend to make over and over until I am tired or bored or the project feels resolved.
For the last five or so years, I’ve been especially focused on garment patterns, whether commercially made or self-drafted, and the reproducibility of taking that pattern and then being able to make a garment over and over again, and to make changes and to customize them while the blueprint remains. The pattern communicates so much information two dimensionally about a garment—style, size, and fit, and as someone who has always been more comfortable working three-dimensionally, I find the pattern to be both fascinating and frustrating. So, by designing a system for myself of pattern development that I can then choose to follow or alter, I am expanding my relationship to the pattern.
SS: There’s definitely something much more direct, I think, about these tangible objects having a presence within the space that viewers are occupying. And especially because you’ve so often displayed these garments disembodied, they make you consider the body’s relationship to the garments a little bit more. I know that you have thought a lot about how the gendered body relates to natural and material environments and I’m wondering if you could speak more about that?
MH: I am fairly new to motherhood and I have made garments that are directly inspired by mothering. I initially conceived of the Zero Waste Blouse as a postpartum garment or a garment that could be worn by someone who is breastfeeding. I envisioned that potential function for it even prior to becoming a mother, but I wanted to come back to that specific use and function, while also allowing for it to be something else and be worn by anyone, regardless of gender.
Last summer, in partnership with doula Madison Hendry, I invited other self-identified mothers and caregivers into a gallery setting for an exhibition I had at The Sculpture Center. Mothers brought their children who were breastfeeding at varying ages and they wore the blouses. It was an intimate performance, and reinforced a lot of what I had been thinking about the unifying nature of wearing garments, but also how it is a very different experience for the individual at the same time.
SS: I was going to ask you about how motherhood impacted your practice and it sounds like it’s had quite a substantial effect. I’m also wondering how teaching has shaped you creatively.
MH: I teach in a fashion design program, and I am often teaching garment construction skills. I also teach about textiles and their origins—how they’re sourced or manufactured, whether natural fibers or human-made, and by what processes those are made into apparel items or interiors textiles, and so on. Being able to share that process and that lineage with students is really gratifying to me, because I think a lot of that knowledge isn’t necessarily readily available. We have rich conversations about material, so there is more dialogue now about using a natural fiber versus a synthetic fiber, and how we might source materials that are more ethically made. In studio classes, I try to bring these conversations into the fold in the design phase to get students to even think about what they’re doing with their scraps. We recently started a scrap collection bin in the classroom, which I’m excited to continue to maintain. We’ve also partnered with a local textile recycler who is going to come collect those scraps. I think it’s a great opportunity for students to understand their impact.
bell hooks has been an incredible inspiration for me, and I’ve also recently been thinking about an article by Dr. Crystal Belle, which speaks to the practice of mothering in relationship to teaching. Teaching is very much about exhibiting care for students and wanting to support them in their growth and in overcomingchallenges in their studio practices, and sometimes outside of that.
And I think another influence for me in regard to teaching that also ties into motherhood is speed. I think a lot about slow design and how, yes, that is a response to fast fashion, but also more increasingly how my students can think about more varied approaches to designing and making. For example, I think zero-waste design, why it feels like such a home for me, is because it invites experimentation and knowledge-sharing and rejects some of the conventions of patternmaking specifically. And there are a number of different approaches to zero-waste design, but the one significant way that I use it is through patterning and reducing or eliminating the scrap that’s made between garment pieces when you’re laying out a pattern.
SS: That connection between teaching and motherhood is so interesting, because both are rooted in acts of care, as is the medium of textiles. Traditionally, across many cultures, textile-making was centered in women’s caretaking roles within a family unit or community. It all ties together. In regard to your studio work, how do you manage your limited time? Are you improvising? Are you planning?
MH: I’m a planner, and I’m also someone who responds well to having a project or a deadline. Sometimes I really need to have a project on the horizon, but at the same time, I am consistently making. Sometimes that looks like nurturing a part of my creative practice that is less research-based. Maybe I have a sewing project that is for myself, and not for a future exhibition. Maybe it’s making a garment for my kid or someone else. I do need to be actively making in my day-to-day.
Despite my desire to plan, I invite chance and experimentation into my practice in the dyeing phase. Dyeing is a precise chemistry if you want to achieve consistent results and even then, there are elements that are difficult to control. For example, I dyed with dried marigold flowers for this exhibition, and the resulting color is an olivey-chartreuse (rather than yellow), which usually comes from the introduction of iron in the process. Maybe there was iron in the water or in the plants themselves? I don’t know but I appreciate letting the materials have their power.
SS: Because you’re very rooted within this slow design/slow fashion movement, I’m wondering how your work engages with global fashion trends—if it does at all—or how you address fast fashion or the global fashion community through your work?
MH: I think about trends by nature of being around college students. I think that partly it just comes with the territory. But I’m also curious from more of a sociological perspective, how trends are formed, if they’re trickling down or trickling up in terms of the fashion supply chain. And I do respond to them.
One way that I have done that is through titling a couple of series of works, specifically the Zero Waste Blouse series. The summer that I made the Zero Waste Blouse, the Coastal Grandma aesthetic was popular. That trend coincided with the making of the blouse, which was fairly loose-fitting, made of linen, and dyed with plant dyes that were neutral in color. So I played with that in the titling of the first series, Eileen Fisher Coastal Grandma, to also reference the fashion designer (Fisher) and her brand’s sustainability initiatives, including the “three lives” of fabric reuse.
I think trends have a lot to teach us and I think they’re fun and funny. They give so much to our cultural understanding of fashion, but at the same time, I am not making in response to trends. I’m thinking about how I can make something that is responsive to now and has longevity.
I’m also reviving a project from the past that explores compostability in regard to clothing and textiles. I did a project where I buried three garments in my backyard in Detroit and then unearthed them after three months. I was curious about what could happen on a biological level after that period of time, and the diversity of breakdown of the textiles was fascinating. They were all buried at the same time, they were all cotton but possibly had different finishes. One was mostly intact, another was more deteriorated and had some holes and pieces missing, and then the third was almost just the collar of the blouse, and then a line of polyester thread connecting the acrylic buttons.
I was playing with this niche idea within sustainable fashion of clothing being so passive, or so beneficial for the environment, that it could be composted. While I understand the impetus for a brand to promote their garments in that way, I think it’s also ridiculous to compost a garment versus finding another alternative that keeps that item in circulation.
SS: I’m thinking about you burying things in your backyard. How are you considering your geographic location within Detroit and Michigan? How does your environment and the culture of the city impact your work?
MH: I would say that my work is not visually representative of Detroit. It’s not something that is understood through imagery that I’m using, but increasingly, I think about sourcing materials locally. I aim to work within a fibershed, which is anywhere from a 150 to 300 mile radius from Detroit. I also source secondhand as much as possible, while understanding that those materials that end up in a thrift store or an arts reuse shop might have come from a lot of different places before they actually end up in this city, and thinking about that potential is also really exciting for me.
But I am increasingly thinking about what it means to source dye locally. So more recently, I put out a request for friends and neighbors for marigolds, which I’ve used for this exhibition.
SS: Thinking about your current exhibition, Soft Slow, what are you considering right now? And how do you envision the continuation of your work into the future?
MH: I have been working with this same Zero Waste Blouse pattern for about three years and finding opportunities to iterate this pattern. This summer I started a zero-waste pant pattern during a residency and have just recently finished it, which will be in this exhibition. I’m starting to think more about what a zero-waste collection of garments could look like that are still versatile and could be pieced or mixed and matched.
I am also slowly incorporating digital design tools into my practice, including software that makes zero-waste pattern design more efficient. I think it is valuable to understand the effectiveness of such a tool but I am so materially inclined that, for me, it will never replace pattern drafting by hand.
Long-term, my goal is to invest my time and practice locally while also continuing to travel intentionally to learn about the use of marigolds and temple blessings in India. This year, I’ll be traveling to Mumbai to understand how dye studios use what would otherwise be waste, for dyeing of fabrics and garments.
Margaret Hull is an artist working in textiles and installation. In her current research, she applies slow design principles to garment construction. Through the design, fabrication, and display of garments and other textiles, she explores alternative modes of production to fast fashion–the prevailing value system in contemporary dress.
Based in Detroit, Michigan, Hull has an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art and a BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art. She has been awarded residencies at AZ West in Joshua Tree, California; Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine; the Icelandic Textile Center in Blönduós, Iceland; TEXERE in Santa María del Tule, Oaxaca, Mexico; and Hospitalfield in Arbroath, UK. Her work has been exhibited at the New Orleans Museum of Art, Cranbrook Art Museum, and The Sculpture Center, among other venues. She is Associate Professor in the Fashion Design and Merchandising program at Wayne State University.
Shelley Selim is the Mort Harris Curator of Automotive, Industrial, and Decorative Design at the Detroit Institute of Arts. She was previously the Curator of Design and Decorative Arts at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, where she developed the curatorial program for one of the largest museum design collections in the nation and two historic homes. She has curated, published, and lectured widely on topics related to modern and contemporary design, craft, and art, and her work often examines the increasingly nebulous boundaries between these disciplines.
A printed version of this article was published in conjunction with Hull's exhibition, Soft Slow, at Other Plans in January 2026. Email info@otherplans.gallery to request a copy.