Garments for Living and Dying
Garments for Living and Dying is a social and material design practice that explores clothing as a supportive resource at the end of life. Drawing on long, collaborative traditions of quilting, hand-stitching, natural dyeing, and silk painting, this work positions garment-making as an expanded practice of honouring bodies as they change. Made by many hands in a collaborative, intergenerational process, each piece weaves together stories, memories, and relationships into a garment someone can be physically held by.
The term palliative care stems from the Latin palliare, meaning ‘to cloak’. While clothing is not generally the first thing we think of when considering end-of-life care, it quietly lives within the foundational language of this work. It reminds us what a garment is and does: a soft shell that offers a felt sense of being held, contained, and taken care of. This research traces the multiplicity of ways that clothing can support us in our most vulnerable moments: as a space of agency and dignity for people moving through medical systems, as a practice of memory and connection with loved ones past and present, and as a pathway towards beauty, self-expression, celebration and love. Garments for Living and Dying positions clothing not as peripheral to care, but as one of its oldest and most intimate expressions.
This work draws from Nellie's personal experience working in end-of-life care, an in-depth hospice case study, and interviews conducted with end-of-life professionals across Germany and Canada. Garments for Living and Dying looks to clothing as an everyday, accessible tool to engage with the realities of death and dying – as well as for fully living in all the moments leading up to that point.
Photos: Theresa Stritzinger
