From burial urns to surfboards – wool can be used to make just about anything

Lisbeth Løvbak Berg on 16. February 2022

Ingun Grimstad Klepp, Lisbeth Løvbak Berg and Anna Schytte Sigaard.

OPINION: There’s no such thing as bad wool, only bad use.

In the Norwegian folk song Kråkevisa (The Crow Song), a man-made everything from a boat, to windows, to barrels of meat and fat from a bird he shot. There is a lot to learn from this – did you know that anything from burial urns, flowerpots, and surfboards to sanitary towels and diapers can be made from wool?

Wool can replace plastic

Poland is one of many EU countries where little or none of the wool produced is actually used. The Polish-Norwegian research project WOOLUME is working towards better utilisation of this resource, wool from Polish Mountain sheep. A new report from the project shows that anything from gardening products to insulation to personal hygiene products, as well as burial urns, coffins and surfboards are now being made of wool and has the potential to be made from the wool that is currently being thrown away in Poland and other EU countries, and that we call vacant wool. The products utilise the natural properties of wool, such as biodegradability, moisture absorbance, temperature regulation and nutritional content.

Several of these products, such as sanitary towels and diapers, are predominantly made of plastic. Microplastic pollution from the production, use and disposal of synthetic materials is a major environmental problem. According to the new national strategy on plastics, Norway alone emits an estimated 1017 tonnes of microplastics annually. Reducing the use of plastic we have little control over, such as in clothing and single-use products like sanitary towels and diapers, is therefore urgent. Wool is biodegradable and if not contaminated with toxic chemicals, wool products can be used as a fertilizer, for soil improvement or be composted after use.

Click here to read the full op-ed (sciencenorway.no)

Wardrobe Research for Change

Lisbeth Løvbak Berg on 15. February 2022

2nd March 2022, 9.00-16.00 CET, Pilestredet 46 – Clara Holsts hus, Athene 1&2, OsloMet

The CHANGE research project invites you to a full-day seminary about´wardrobe studies´ as a research method, and how it can be used to solve the challenges of the current clothing consumption and the fashion industry. There will be talks by Kate Fletcher, Else Skjold, Ingun Grimstad Klepp and other researcher from the CHANGE project. The seminary will be in English and is open to students, researchers, designers and other people working in the field. Sign-up by e-mail by sending us a few words about why this is relevant to you.

Programme:

9:30: Arrival + check-in
9:30-10: Presentations of the CHANGE research project, its aims and scope by Ingun G. Klepp
10-12: The Wardrobe Gaze – workshop facilitated by Kate Fletcher and Else Skjold
12-13: Lunch
13-14:15: The Wardrobe Method – talks by CHANGE researchers
13:35-14:15: Q&A with participants and the CHANGE team
14:15-14:30: Future Scenarios; How can wardrobe research create change?
15:30-16: Round-up and plenary discussion

New book on local and sustainable clothes

Lisbeth Løvbak Berg on 9. February 2022

Explores the importance of local practices in achieving global sustainability.

This is a book about one fibre, wool, its role in the future of a more sustainable global textile industry, and a new approach to how we can organize how we use local resources in a better way.

Why is this important?

Because of the overload and pressure on land, oil reserves, chemicals, water and more for producing clothes that are thrown away after too few uses, or not used at all—must stop. A sector with such a gross over-production and over-consumption of finite resources has an enormous potential to improve its footprint. We have chosen the lens of wool, as it is the fibre we know the best and which is Indigenous to our home country, Norway.

About the book

Klepp, Ingun Grimstad and Tobiasson, Tone Skårdal (eds.): Local, Slow and Sustainable Fashion. Wool as a Fabric for Change. Palgrave Macmillan 2022

The book is available from the publisher as e-book and traditional book (springer.com).

Ingun Grimstad Klepp is Professor of Clothing and Sustainability at Consumption Research Norway (SIFO) at Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway.

Tone Skårdal Tobiasson is a seasoned journalist and editor, and founder of Nordic Initiative Clean & Ethical Fashion.

Reviews

“This book is a tour de force and a heart-on-sleeve exploration of how a familiar fibre can radically change the fashion and sustainability story.”

Professor Kate Fletcher, Centre for Sustainable Fashion, London College of Fashion, UK

“The authors of this fascinating book use wool as a lens through which to see important aspects of the contemporary world: corporate capitalism, consumerism, standardisation and their opposites: localised crafts and practices, quality of life, sustainability. Readable, enlightening and engaged, this book is fuelled by a passion for wool and expertly weaves, spins, cards and knits the small and the large scale, contributing not only to our knowledge about fabrics and sustainability, but also adds depth to our understanding of globalisation.”

Professor Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo, Norway

Woolume: Potential new products from vacant wool

Lisbeth Løvbak Berg on 26. January 2022

Anna Schytte Sigaard, Lisbeth Løvbak Berg and Ingun Grimstad Klepp

Summary

This report gives an overview of the market for alternative wool products with the perceived potential to be made using vacant wool. The work is based on a desktop study and interviews with manufacturers and distributors, focusing on products made of wool and their qualities. The report is the second deliverable from work package 2 of the WOOLUME project. The main goal of WOOLUME is to explore different ways of using wool from the Polish Mountain Sheep to achieve better utilisation of resources and value creation. Producers were identified that use wool as a material for products in the following categories: cultivation, soil improvement, insulation and personal hygiene as well as other new and alternative wool products. Findings show a range of products that take advantage of the many properties of wool, both aesthetic and technical. They also show that wool has the potential to replace synthetic materials in several applications and create truly circular products when treated in a way that preserves biodegradability. Though Merino wool dominates the wool market, several producers make use of other, local wool qualities and the interest for using the vacant wool, often discarded as a mere by-product of meat and dairy production, is growing. However, there is further potential for optimising resource utilisation in using vacant wool, in particular, non-spinnable wool with a higher fibre thickness, in products where the fineness and spinnability of merino wool are not required.

Click here to read the full report (oslomet.no).

«Revitalize, Repair and Redesign». Доклад Ингун Гримстад Клепп

Lisbeth Løvbak Berg on 7. December 2021

Webinar: 8th December 2021, 19:00-20:30 CET

Organised by HSE University Art and Design School, Moscow.

«Revitalize, Repair and Redesign»

In this talk Ingun Grimstad Klepp, professor in clothing and sustainability, will take you through the world of damaged clothes. She will show how the history of mending has as many holes as the clothes, and why and how interest in mending is growing. The examples given are mostly Norwegian, but international political and cultural changes will be discussed. To spend time and resources on taking care of something demands that the object is worthy of our care. It is important to do it in the right way, and not destroy it in our eager to change it. This talk is based on a brand-new book, unfortunately only available in Norwegian, about how to give clothes nine lives.

Click here for more details and to sign up (timepad.ru).

Responsible Fashion: How do we make our ideas a reality?

Lisbeth Løvbak Berg on 3. November 2021

Symposium hosted by Instituto Maragoni, London

24th November 2021, 9:30 am – 4:30 pm GMT

This online symposium offers a space to propose and discuss radical new ways to envisage fashion and how these may be implemented.

About this event

The pandemic has provided space to step back and to reflect, to ask questions about the meaning, value and potential of fashion in a post-Covid world. How can the industry move forward in a responsible way? How must it change? What does responsible fashion really mean? What is it that we actually want to sustain? We know the problems, so let’s find solutions.

We will present our work with wool during the symposium.

Click here to see the recordings from the event (researchiml.com).

Fossil Fashion: How Green Growth is Undermining the Circular Economy

Lisbeth Løvbak Berg on 24. October 2021

Why the fashion industry, driven by the green growth notion, cannot recycle its way out of the climate crisis

By Tone Skårdal Tobiasson

Tone is co-editor of “Local, Slow and Sustainable Fashion Fibres: Wool as a Fabric For Change”, from Palgrave Macmillan, out on December 18, 2021.

As the world comes to terms with the climate crisis and the environmental devastation of our over-consumption, we are increasingly being told that switching to greener products will not only save us, but be good for the economy. This is the principle behind “green growth”, which encourages us to continue consuming as long as the products we buy are more sustainable. But could it be that someone is pulling wool over our eyes?

The fashion industry has become one of the main culprits in the blaming-and-shaming for carbon-emissions, and numbers have been thrown around at a rate that rivals fast fashion. One of the most used statistics is that textiles in 2015 emitted 1.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide, equivalent or more than maritime shipping and international flights combined, a number that has since been challenged. However, the fashion industry is far from off the hook. 

Click here to read the full article (impakter.com).

Make the Label Count

Lisbeth Løvbak Berg on 14. October 2021

Wednesday the 13th October, Ingun Grimstad Klepp participated in the panel discussion at the launch of the Make the Label Count campaign – an international coalition of organisations that want to ensure that the EU’s new labelling system for sustainable clothing is credible and valid. They are critical of the EU commission’s proposed use of Product Environmental Footprint (PEF), because it does not account for important environmental impacts and does not correspond with the EU’s sustainability goals. The standard does not either present a complete picture of a product’s environmental footprint.

The event was opened by Livia Firth, as a keynote speaker, and the other participants in the debate were Paola Miliorini form the EU commission and Pascal Morand from the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode.

You can watch the full event here (youtube).

Dette bildet mangler alt-tekst; dets filnavn er Skjermbilde-2021-10-14-110723-1024x601.png
From the Make the Label Count campaign
Dette bildet mangler alt-tekst; dets filnavn er bilde-1024x599.png
From the Make the Label Count campaign

Click here to read more about the campaign and how to join it (maketelabelcount.org).

Out of the Wardrobe

Lisbeth Løvbak Berg on 5. October 2021

Webinar: 21st of October 2021, 10:45 – 14:00 CEST

An international panel discuss how wardrobe studies can help us to understand how what we wear can make a sustainable future

About this event

The remit of wardrobe studies is not limited to actual garments or textile objects, although it often starts there, but to consider the way clothes communicate notions of self, emotion, place, connectivity and relationships that hitherto would be unspoken and/or rendered mute. Wardrobe studies offer a way in which these relationships or clothing experiences can be recorded, interpreted and also utilized outside of the realms of academia to understand the ways in which clothing is selected, used, kept, discarded and so on, in order to change or challenge clothing consumption, to empower the user, to improve clothing manufacture or indeed to revitalize or instigate it. Wardrobe studies are concerned with clothing behaviours in everyday life, from start to finish, birth to death and everything in-between.

Schedule

9.45 – opening welcome and introduction ( Dr Jo Turney)

10.00 – Keynote speaker – Dr Ingun Grimstad Klepp (Oslo Metropolitan University) Professor in Clothing and sustainability The presentation will provide a short overview of the history of wardrobe studies and how the method was developed through collaboration between clothing, design and fashion researchers the last 20 years. It will then look at what characterizes the method and why it is so useful when working towards sustainable development. Ingun will provide examples from ongoing projects where the method is being used in very different ways, from improving LCA for clothing to understanding wardrobe dynamics. This includes using the method for quantitative as well as qualitative purposes. Examples of ongoing studies at SIFO are CHANGE and Wasted Textiles. In CHANGE the main objective is occasions and variety in couples’ wardrobes. You can read more about the study here: CHANGE: Environmental systems shift in clothing consumption – OsloMet. Wasted Textiles will map textiles that is going out of use in households to increase knowledge about the ways this waste is generated and disposed of, and its fibre composition. You can read more about the study here: Wasted Textiles – OsloMet. Currently, the researchers are re-analyzing material from two earlier wardrobe studies conducted at SIFO for potential use in both CHANGE and Wasted Textiles. Although most studies that use the method have an environmental viewpoint, it can also be used to examine other perspectives. One example is the project BELONG, which examines children’s sense of belonging through their relationship to people, places and to their possessions. You can read more about the project here: Practices and policies of belonging among minority and majority children of low-income families (BELONG) – OsloMet. Overall, this presentation will give you an insight into the method and its rich potential in gathering knowledge about clothing and us, their wearers.

11.00 – Dr Anna-Mari Almila (independent scholar) – Older Men’s Wardrobes

11.20 – Dr Else Skjold, (Royal Danish Academy, Copenhagen, Head of Fashion, Clothing and Textile; New Landscapes for Change) – Wardrobe Studies and Pedagogy

11.40 – Dr Liudmila Alebieva (Editor Russian Fashion Theory, Higher School of Economics, Moscow) – Curating Wardrobes

12.00 – Dr Valerie Wilson Trower (London College of Fashion) – Expatriate western women’s wardrobes: Hong Kong, 1960 – 1997.

12.20 – Sharon Williams (WSA) –Wardrobes at WSA

12.40 – questions and round-up

#WSAFashionTalks

#ClothingCultures

Klick here to watch the recording of the event (donkeydave.co.uk).