Johanna Törnqvist

Textile worker

©Fredrik Sederholm

Artfully adding value to textile scraps

Johanna works between art, craft and fashion
She gives new value to waste materials
Her garments are made with the care of haute couture

Johanna Törnqvist crafts jewellery and garments out of recycled textiles and plastics. She uses waste and byproducts produced by herself, her family or her friends, transforming valueless materials into something precious through the process. Johanna pleats and stitches these materials together with the same precision used in haute couture. A bold statement about our daily consumption, her work explores questions about sustainability and the environment, and contributes to the ongoing debate about the environmental impact of the fashion industry.

Interview

What kind of training did you have?: I graduated from Studio Berçot in Paris in 1990, and I was also educated in New York, Japan and Stockholm. I have been working in fashion, textile handicraft and ceramics, as well as education, and run many courses and workshops.
Why did you start making clothes and accessories?: I have a background as a fashion designer, and I came back to fashion through craft when my grandmother passed away. I found an enormous amount of textile pieces from worn out clothes in her house. Those items became the beginning of my first collection.
Do you only work with recycled materials?: I do. It can be anything that we normally consider trash, like worn out clothes, plastic bags, packaging materials. Making attractive garments and jewellery without using the earth’s resources is the source of my inspiration.
What would you advise young people wanting to work in craftsmanship?: I think that crafts are undervalued in today's world. My advice to the younger generation is to never give up on craft – it is the future. The world is experiencing a period of readjustment, and the time when craft skills are in high demand will come back!

Johanna Törnqvist is a master artisan: she began her career in 1990 and she started teaching in 2000