About us
The clothing research group
We are the clothing research group at Consumption Research Norway (SIFO), based at Oslo Metropolitan University.
Ingun Grimstad Klepp
Professor
Ingun is an ethnologist with an educational background in sewing, weaving and textile chemistry. Since 1999, she has been working with clothing and textiles research at Consumption Research Norway. She has been essential in developing the research field through advancing methods, projects, knowledge and discourse about clothes and their role in society and our lives, including clothing habits, laundry, lifespan, product development and value chains. Ingun actively shares her knowledge in the media, through exhibitions, debates, and popular books and Encyclopedia articles. Ingun has received the Norwegian Research Council’s Award for Excellence in Communication of Science. Since 2000, Ingun has published:
• 104 scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals or books
• 226 Encyclopedia and popular science articles
• 123 op-eds in text-based media
• 844 media contributions
• 11 books, both as author and editor.
Click here to see list of publications
Click here to see CRISTIN profile (Current Research Information System in Norway)
Contact:
ingunk@oslomet.no / + 47 990 97 402
Kirsi Laitala
Senior Researcher
Kirsi Laitala is a senior researcher at the department for Technology and Sustainability at the Consumption Research Norway (SIFO), where she has been working with textiles and clothing research since 2001. She gained her MSc degree in textile, clothing and fibre engineering from Tampere University of Technology in 2001, and completed a PhD at the Department of Product Design at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in 2014. Laitala has researched and published on areas related to clothing quality, maintenance, safety, environmental issues, design, as well as fit and size issues, including reports for the industry as well as scientific journal articles. Her current research interest lies within sustainable clothing consumption.
Vilde Haugrønning
PhD Candidate
Vilde Haugrønning holds a master’s degree from the Centre for Environment and Development (SUM) at the University of Oslo and a bachelor’s degree in Social Anthropology and Visual Culture from NTNU. Her research area is mainly consumer research, and she has previously studied food consumption in Norwegian households. Her current research area is clothing consumption and sustainability and she is a PhD Candidate in the research project CHANGE at SIFO. In her project, she will study the use of clothing in everyday life from a practice-oriented perspective, and compare differences between how men and women dress and connect this to the volume of clothing.
Anna Schytte Sigaard
PhD Candidate
Anna is a PhD candidate on the project Wasted Textiles, where the goal is to reduce the use of plastics in the form of synthetic textiles. Through this project, she will explore what synthetic textile waste in Norwegian households consists of, how it is created and how the textiles are disposed of. Anna has an interdisciplinary background with a master’s degree from the Centre for Development and the Environment, where she wrote her thesis about the production of genetically modified cotton in India.
Ingrid Haugsrud
Researcher
Ingrid Haugsrud is a fashion designer who holds a Master’s degree in Fashion and Society from OsloMet. Her thesis was a wardrobe study that investigated which clothes that were valuable to the informants and in what way. Ingrid has worked with local value chains and production, and with more sustainable business models in fashion. At SIFO, Ingrid is working on the research projects CHANGE, BELONG, REDUCE and FoodLessons.
Lisbeth Løvbak Berg
Researcher
Lisbeth is a fashion designer with years of experience, both as a consultant and a business owner, as well as teaching at Middlesex University, London. She holds a master’s degree from the MA Fashion Futures course at London College of Fashion where she did consumer research and examined the designer’s role in future fashion scenarios and sustainable clothing consumption. At SIFO, Lisbeth is working on the WOOLUME, Wasted Textiles, Lasting and IMAGINE projects.
Irene Maldini
Senior researcher
Irene Maldini (PhD) is a senior researcher for the project CHANGE. She conducts critical research on the environmental impact of growing consumption and production volumes of clothing and other consumer goods. She specializes on the solutions that have been proposed to reduce these volumes at company and public policy levels and in assessing their effect. Her background is in product design (bachelors), design studies (masters) and design for sustainability (PhD). She has previously worked as a product designer and an academic in Uruguay, Brazil, the Netherlands, and Portugal.
Kate Fletcher
Research Professor
Kate Fletcher (PhD) is a Research Professor at SIFO and also a Professor at the Royal Danish Academy, Copenhagen. She is one of the most cited scholars in fashion and sustainability, and her work, including that on systems change, post-growth fashion, fashion localism, decentring durability and Earth Logic, defines and challenges the field. She has written and/or edited eleven books available in eight languages. Kate is a co-founder of the Union of Concerned Researchers in Fashion. Her most recent work is about design, clothing and nature.
At SIFO, Kate is leading work packages in the Lasting and CHANGE projects.
Kinga Zablocka
Research Assistant
Kinga Zablocka has a BA degree in Fashion and Production from OsloMet, as well as a Master of Aesthetic Practices in Society; Fashion from the same university. She works as a scientific assistant on the CHANGE project which investigates what is most essential to reduce the environmental impact of clothing: reduce the amount of clothing that is produced, acquired and disposed of. Her MA thesis “Is it worth it?” talked about clothing repair among young adults in Norway, with wardrobe studies and interviews as the main method. In her work she focuses on sustainability, clothing value and clothing repair.
Collaborators.
In our research, we collaborate with different people, from industry, research institutions and other organisations.
Tone Skårdal Tobiasson
NICE fashion
Tone Skårdal Tobiassson, journalist and author, went from managing editor of fashion magazines to become a founder of NICE (Nordic Initiative Clean & Ethical) Fashion. Currently she is responsible for dissemination in the following projects: Amazing Grazing, WOOLUME, hiWOOL, LASTING, CHANGE and Wasted Textiles. She co-authored Ren ull, Norsk strikkehistorie and Strikk med norsk ull, and Lettstelt, Lettkledd and Lettfiks. She is a contributor to EcoTextile News and other international publications, and is a Board member of Union of Concerned Researchers in Fashion.
