Over the past two years, the world has seen a major resurgence of crafting in pop culture. The crafting hashtag on TikTok has accumulated 3.3 billion views, with creators showing off their handmade jewelry, clothing, bags and accessories.

This renewal has seeped into high end fashion. Designers have been incorporating that handmade composition into their looks. It may make one wonder: how has a hobby as simple as crafting evolved into a full fledged art form?

First, a brief look at the history of crafting may help in understanding its recent surge in popularity. One can see that classic fashion-oriented crafts such as crocheting, knitting, embroidery, and jewelry-making were originally domestic activities, in which women during the 19th and early 20th centuries would pass time and use them as a creative outlet. Crocheting, knitting, and embroidery during this time period was not seen as an art form, and were not respected as such. They were merely seen as crafts for useful household items. During the 1970s, crafting honed a new edge with the birth of “craftivism”, a form of protesting used with crafts. Craftvisim is generally centered around women’s rights and came about during the second wave of the feminist movement. Craftivism still has a place in modern protesting, and has proven crafting to not just be a domestic activity, but an artform with a greater purpose.

Flash forward to 2020. We saw a huge rise in crafting due to the COVID lockdown. People filled their time learning new skills, many of which were the aforementioned crocheting, knitting, embroidery and jewelry making. With the high use of social media during a modern-age, people began posting and sharing their handmade creations with the world, accelerating the popularity of curating your own clothing and accessories.

The expansion of crafting has so many unforeseen positives besides fending off the boredom of lockdown. For one thing, it is sustainable. Creating your own clothes, and repurposing clothes you no longer use, is a step against fast fashion, while also saving money. As well, producing your own clothes allows people to create clothing more size inclusive to themselves, thus allowing people to have a creative outlet and make pieces they feel most confident in. The revival of crafting in fashion has not only positively affected our environmental impact, it changed the way we view fashion as a more inclusive and accessible artform.

While crafting has infiltrated social media and pop culture, high fashion brands are also recognizing its impact and adding it to their collections. Crocheting has been seen on multiple runway shows, including Partow Fall 2022 showcasing chunky crochet pieces, or Oscar de la Renta’s straw-like jewelry. The reason these brands are incorporating crafting pieces in their work is not only because of their popularity, but because it displays the essence of crafting. Owning and exhibiting pieces that you know firsthand takes copious amounts of time and care to create, but adds a personal touch to your clothing, which fashion brands are trying to recreate.