Eva Kittelsen

https://evakittelsen.com/

https://www.instagram.com/evakittelsen/

Hand mending

Mending my soul, body and mind, one stitch at the time

I have a BA in Fashion and Textile Design from the University of Portsmouth. I got a job with with product development and buying for the Varner Group, the second biggest fashion company in Scandinavia right after graduation and worked there for about 3 years. During the maternity leave for my second son (I had my first while studying), I decided to quit my job in the fast fashion company when I started helping out with the startup of the ethical clothing brand/manufacturer Fair & Square. It's a Norwegian non-profit who's fully responsible for their textile workers as the company owns the factory instead of outsourcing. The workers in our factory in China have similar working condition and rights as we do in Norway, including paid holidays, paid maternity leave, sick pay, 37,5h work weeks and more than a living wage. I supplemented my income by making weddingdresses, and started specialising in redesigning inherited 2nd and even 3rd generation dresses.
While I started working with them I also became passionate about visible mending and started promoting it through instagram. I have been doing presentations and workshops about ethical fashion production and mending for the past couple of years. In 2019 I applied to become a member of The Norwegian Association for Arts and Crafts, and was accepted by a jury, which means I can now also consider myself a Textile artist. My art revolves around mending, obviously, but I also use it as commentary on the society we live in, and topics like anit-capitalism and feminism/gender/identity interest me in particular.

yes

Yes

Oslo, Norway