Vermont Woman Is Growing Flax to Make a Dress From Seed

Eve Ogden Schaub is taking “slow fashion” literally: she is growing the raw material for a dress in her backyard and plans to make the garment herself. According to The Guardian, Schaub began the project in April 2025, converting a 600-square-foot vegetable garden in Vermont into a flax-growing plot. After harvesting the first crop, she planted and harvested a second. The flax now has to undergo a lengthy series of processes before it can become clothing. Schaub has already worked through retting, a decomposition process used to separate fibers from the plant, along with breaking, scutching and hackling. She is learning to spin the processed flax into linen yarn and is growing indigo plants in case she eventually chooses to dye it. The yarn will then be woven on a large loom before the fabric is cut and sewn into a dress. The project is Schaub’s response to the speed and convenience of modern clothing production. She wants to examine what might be gained by making garments more slowly and by giving greater value to creativity, repair and hands-on work. Her broader concerns include clothing waste, synthetic materials and the conditions faced by people working in garment production and recycling. A self-described maker, Schaub has documented the experiment through videos on Instagram and has sought advice from a range of experts. She has also involved family members and friends. Learning to spin has been particularly difficult, she told The Guardian, describing the process as one in which mistakes are unavoidable. The effort has changed Schaub’s own attitude toward clothes. She says department-store garments no longer appeal to her as much, and she feels more motivated to appreciate and mend the clothing she already owns. People responding to her social-media posts have told her the project helped them understand why cloth was once expensive and why many people historically owned only one or two outfits. Schaub has sewn Halloween costumes but has not previously made a dress of this kind. She plans to work with an experienced friend and use historical dress patterns. She cannot yet say when the project will be finished, but intends to wear whatever the homegrown flax ultimately becomes.