Eve Ogden Schaub's Journey to Create a Dress from Homegrown Flax

London, United Kingdom Aug 29, 2026 ALN: From Fast Fashion to Slow Fashion

In a world dominated by fast fashion, where clothing is mass-produced and quickly discarded, Eve Ogden Schaub is taking a radical approach by growing her own dress. This innovative project not only challenges the norms of the fashion industry but also emphasizes sustainability and creativity.

Schaub began her journey in April 2025, transforming a 600 square foot vegetable garden in Vermont into a flax-growing plot. She is documenting her progress on Instagram, sharing the intricate steps involved in creating a linen garment from scratch.

“I had this idea that I wanted to find the slowest fashion imaginable. And that’s when I had the idea I could grow a dress from seed in my backyard,” she explains. After successfully harvesting her first crop, Schaub is now learning to process the flax through a series of traditional methods, including retting, breaking, scutching, and hackling.

“We retted it, which is a sort of decomposition process, and then you do breaking and scutching and hackling, and you have to spin and scour and then maybe dye your yarn,” she adds. Schaub is also growing indigo plants for dyeing, aiming to create a truly unique garment.

Once the flax is spun into linen yarn, she plans to weave it on a large loom before cutting and sewing the dress. “It’s an enormous undertaking, but something that not all that long ago was completely commonplace,” she reflects, highlighting the historical significance of such craftsmanship.

While the convenience of fast fashion is appealing, Schaub points out its detrimental effects on the environment and workers' health. “Fast fashion has become an environmental and health catastrophe,” she states, noting the stark contrast between the ease of acquiring cheap clothing and the hidden costs associated with it.

In a culture that prioritizes speed and cost, Schaub aims to provoke thought about the value of slowing down and creating meaningful connections with the items we wear. “What might we stand to gain if we were to slow down and try to find things that are more meaningful to us?” she asks.

As a self-described “fibre-person and maker,” Schaub has a history of engaging in lifestyle experiments, including a year without sugar and a commitment to producing no waste. Her current project aligns with her previous endeavors, as she seeks to understand the implications of modern clothing and the environmental challenges posed by synthetic materials.

“Unfortunately, we’re all walking around wearing plastic bags most of the time, and we don’t even realize it,” she laments, emphasizing the need for greater awareness of the materials we choose to wear.

Schaub hopes her project will illuminate the often-overlooked realities of the fashion industry, including the exploitation of workers and the environmental impact of mass production. “The whole system, I want to question and say, is this what we want?” she asserts.

Throughout her journey, Schaub has sought advice from various experts, valuing the importance of shared knowledge. However, she admits that some aspects of the process have proven challenging. “There’s something inherently funny in the learning process, because you screw up and you screw up, and you know you’re going to screw up,” she shares, capturing the essence of experimentation.

Many followers of her social media journey have expressed newfound understanding of the value of clothing. “I get so many people commenting on my social media posts saying, ‘now I understand why clothes were so expensive, why cloth was a valuable commodity,’” she notes.

As Schaub continues her project, she reflects on how her perspective on clothing has shifted. She no longer finds mass-produced garments appealing and is motivated to appreciate and mend the clothes she already owns. “I cannot predict when this project will end, but I promise I’m going to wear something at the end of this,” she concludes, expressing her hope that the final product will be both beautiful and meaningful.