Mid NOTE #1 The Nettle Dress
Connect with nature, the seasons, and your wellbeing with a new series of mid NOTES from a. botanical world, from nature and gardening writer and author Sonya Patel Ellis.
Mid note: Middle notes, also known as heart notes, emerge after the top notes of a scented blend fade. Full-bodied and slow to evaporate, they are the lingering soul of a perfume. That which will be remembered.
Welcome to the first of a new series of Mid NOTES a place to share nature-inspired happenings from my botanical world, including articles and books I’m writing or editing, my home garden and school garden, upcoming artworks and exhibitions, and things to look forward to over the coming season.
As autumn approaches and that back to school feeling sends you whirling around the place like a tornado in a bid to get everything ticked off the list (an almost nostalgic habit that seems ingrained in most of us, whether we’ve got kids or not), the idea of ‘being in the moment’ or subscribing to an ideal canon of slow living can seem impossible. Then I saw The Nettle Dress.
Out in selected UK cinemas tomorrow (15 September 2023) it follows the journey of textile artist Allan Brown as he weaves a nettle dress from fibres foraged largely from Lime Kiln Wood near his home in Sussex following the unexpected passing of his wife and mum to his four children, Alex.
The whole process, from first intuitive forage to fully assembled nettle dress took seven years, requiring enough cordage and then spun yarn to weave 25 feet of fabric on a loom. The documentation of the process by friend and filmmaker Dylan Howitt also took seven years, with elements of seasonality, lost traditions, storytelling, and grief intertwining to produce a lyrical, heartfelt hymn to the healing power of slow craft and nature.
Something other than an editorial opportunity drew me to this film. The Nettle Dress is an unusual title; watching a film devoted entirely to the making of it more unusual still given that nationwide cinemas don’t usually give prime screening time to films about nature or craft. But perhaps that’s the point. I’m not a huge fan of watching films in the cinema due to the intense sensory experience the ‘big screen’ provides these days, but a movie that promised to immerse me in its slowness, that acknowledged some of the very real emotions I was dealing with too – this was something I could go with.
Divided into chapters, there’s also a fairytale quality to the making of it, alluded to in the narrative through comparisons to Hans Christian Andersen’s The Wild Swans, one of many tales that involved fashioning robes from plants, in this case a suite of magical nettle shirts that promise to turn the protagonist’s brothers back from swans into human form.
Nettles sting – or have the potential to if the stinging hairs on leaves and stems are not handled in the right way – and so it is as Brown first begins to find ways to pull the fibres to make cordage out. ‘Nettles find you rather than the other way round. They’re almost always there, they spring up without fail all over the place, they’ve really got this “fuck you” kind of attitude about them. It’s like the sting is bringing you to, pulling you out of your slumber. You’d never guess, just being stung by a Nettle at what further depth there is behind that’, perfectly sums it up as he articulates the brazenly ubiquitous presence of one of our most well-known plants. He later describes how to flatten the hairs out to stop their stings. Or wear leather gloves, which is much easier but perhaps takes the fun out of it for some.
‘Nettles find you rather than the other way round. They’re almost always there, they spring up without fail all over the place, they’ve really got this “fuck you” kind of attitude about them.’
The film is full of such musings, which is absolutely part of its charm. Divided into chapters (catnip for a maker of books), there’s insights into the actual gathering and making of the fibre, fabric and dress, which will appeal to artists, craft-makers, and foragers but also profound meditations about connecting with the land, nature, and the seasons, for everyday wellbeing but also during more difficult passages of time, as an antidote for personal or collective grief.
Despite the thread of tragedy that runs throughout the film, it is ultimately hopeful and uplifting – and if you’re looking for an hour or so of time in which to stop and breathe, or even cry (we all need to sometimes) it’s a gift. A gift of ‘slowing down . . . a means of not losing the plot . . . part shroud, part magical protective cloth.’ As Brown continues to spin and weave his nettles along with flax and hemp grown in his garden and allotment there may also be other dresses, and films, to come.
The Nettle Dress, winner of the Brighton CineCity Audience Award 2022, is out in UK Cinemas from 15 September 2023. Join the Nettle Dress community on Instagram or Facebook for screening information, special events, and updates. There’s also a Facebook page called Nettles for Textiles for those wishing to spin or weave along. To follow Allan Brown’s journey in natural textiles see @hedgerow.couture, for Dylan Howitt’s filmmaking see @dylanhowitt.