Clothing the Loop: Circular Design Festival 2026… an evening of community, performances, fashion and stalls bursting with colourful blouses, fancy hats and gorgeous fabrics. Photo: Grace Cassidy.
Craft and Dance / Clothing the Loop: Circular Design Festival 2026. At CIT Woden Campus until November 7. Reviewed by GRACE CASSIDY.
Hosted by CIT Woden Campus, Clothing the Loop: Circular Design Festival is a celebration of creative expression that encourages people to engage with fashion sustainably.
The Clothing the Loop festival kicked off on Friday night with an evening of community, performances and fashion.
In a room showered in the colour purple, with giant jellyfish-like structures dangling from the ceiling and stalls bursting with colourful blouses, fancy hats and gorgeous fabrics, Canberra’s fashion enthusiasts gather to celebrate art and sustainability, champagne glasses in hand.
After a browse, everyone takes their seat. What follows is a stunning tribute to visual art. Fashion designer Linda Jackson perches on the edge of the stage and narrates while a slideshow of gorgeous photographs plays behind her. The photographs are from the early days of her career in the ’70s and ’80s, showcasing her spectacular designs and documenting the fun she had with her friends.
This is followed by a performance by Australian Dance Party of its new short work Off the Fringes in collaboration with designer Kelli Donovan. The dancers creep into the performance space in colourless, shapeless outfits. Their movements are stiff, slow, writhing, until they aren’t.
The outfits give way to entirely different clothes. Beneath, the dancers wear bright, colourful and ragged designs. Quickly, their movements become bigger. They move more freely as they reject a bleak future. Wasteful trends such as fast fashion are contributing to the environment’s decline. The performance posits that it doesn’t have to be this way.
Following this, the dancers transition to my favourite part of the night. They return to the stage in starkly different outfits: a black T-shirt, a pair of pants, a handmade dress that spends its time in a garment bag, tucked away in a wardrobe. Then, one by one, they tell us the story behind the outfit they’re wearing. They dance while they talk, crafting a moment that’s gentle, funny and thought provoking.
After the dancers leave the space, the festival ends the evening with its crowning jewel: the fashion show. Models parade through the room, showcasing fun, circular designs by Kelli Donovan, Blaklabel Dreamin, Corella & Crow, Dissonance, Fia Lucia, Clarrissa Fugill, Magenta Fox, Neo3DT, Saloon Design House, and Rosalei Buchecker.
Clothing the Loop continues on Saturday with a day of workshops, panels, a clothes swap and another performance by Australian Dance Party.
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