Project Detail

The Nettle Dress

Name: The Nettle Dress
Director: Dylan Howitt
Released: 2023
Duration: 68 min

Dylan Howitt

Synopsis

Textile artist Allan Brown spends seven years making a dress by hand, just from the fibre of locally foraged stinging nettles. This is ‘hedgerow couture’, the greenest of slow fashion, and it is also Allan's medicine. It’s how he survives the death of his wife that left him and their children bereft, and how he finds a beautiful way to honour her.
The challenge of making zero carbon clothing sourced within a few miles of his home means re-learning ancient crafts and recalls the fairy tale 'Wild Swans'.
THE NETTLE DRESS follows Allan’s whole journey through all the seasons and years. Foraging, spinning, weaving, cutting and sewing the cloth. Finally the healing vision of the dress back in the woods where the nettles were picked, worn by one of his daughters. 'Grasping the Nettle' is at the heart of the film. Making a dress this way becomes devotional, with every thread representing hours of mindful loving craft. Over seven years Allan is transformed by the process just as the nettles are. Both the film and dress, a hand-spun labour of love in the truest sense, THE NETTLE DRESS is a modern-day fairytale and hymn to the healing power of nature and slow craft.

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Details

Year: 2023
Type of project: Features
Running time: 68 min
Director: Dylan Howitt
Producer: Dylan Howitt
Co-Producer: Vicki Lesley
Editor: Dylan Howitt
Director of Photography: Dylan Howitt
Composer: Alex Munslow, Liz Pearson

Production Status

Post-production

Production Company

Softly Films Limited

Europa House
Goldstone Villas
Hove
BN3 3RQ.

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