Daniela Gregis x Chiaki Maki: An Advent Skirt Supporting Children Action
Every year since 1997, Daniela Gregis has invited a different artist to reinterpret the Advent skirt — a garment designed to evolve day by day from 1–25 December, with proceeds supporting Children Action Foundation. The 2025 edition brings Gregis together with Japanese textile artist Chiaki Maki, whose work is defined by close attention to materials, process, and place. It’s a collaboration that highlights not only technique but also the relationships that sustain textile traditions: shepherds, spinners, dyers, and makers working in rhythm with the land. The annual project has become a touchpoint within the Gregis studio, a moment where artistic perspectives intersect with long-practised skills.
Daniela Gregis x Chiaki Maki. Advent Skirt 2025
Gregis often speaks of clothing as something that moves with a woman through time, and the Advent skirt translates that idea into a daily gesture. The skirt is constructed from twenty-five long bundles of cloth, each lifted and tied at the waist as December unfolds. The piece shifts shape gradually, acting as a tactile marker of the season rather than a fixed design, turning the simple act of dressing into a form of participation. The evolving silhouette also encourages the wearer to pay attention to texture and weight, noticing how the garment changes as layers accumulate.
Daniela Gregis x Chiaki Maki. Advent Skirt 2025 (Detail)
For this year’s skirt, Maki returned to the foothills of the Himalayas, where she lives and works for most of the year at Ganga Maki Textile Studio in Uttarakhand. The base fabric is woven from the wool of free-grazing Himalayan sheep, hand-shorn and hand-spun by local spinners before Maki forms it on a pit loom — a ground-level loom traditionally used by nomadic communities. Working close to the earth gives the cloth a distinctive handle: dense enough for structure, soft enough to retain air and warmth. The method also creates subtle irregularities in tension that contribute to the skirt’s final drape.
Daniela Gregis x Chiaki Maki. Advent Skirt 2025
Woven directly into the wool are fibres from the Bheemal tree, a material with deep roots in the region’s everyday life. The inner bark yields a strong, lustrous fibre usually twisted into rope; here, Maki uses it in its raw state, letting its irregularity sit alongside the wool. The combination of these two materials — each tied to local landscapes, livelihoods, and generational knowledge — shapes the character of the finished textile and anchors the skirt firmly in its place of origin.
Daniela Gregis x Chiaki Maki. Advent Skirt 2025
After weaving, the cloth is hand-felted to create the skirt’s sculptural form. The garment isn’t stitched into shape; instead, the waist ties and wrap emerge naturally as the wool shrinks and settles. Layers of white and red silk taffeta add versatility, allowing the skirt to be worn and adjusted in multiple ways.
As always, the sale of the Advent skirt through auction supports Children Action Foundation, sustaining a nearly three-decade tradition that brings together thoughtful making, artistic partnership, and meaningful charity.
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Further Information:
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Daniela Gregis - Advent Skirt Archive
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Image Credits:
All images courtesy of Daniela Gregis and as credited in photo captions.