Clothing Care

Kinga Zablocka on 12. January 2025

“And he don’t even care for clothes” sang Nina Simone in “My Baby Just Cares For Me” which is how the chapter “Clothing Care” opens in the new, impressive and comprehensive book “The Palgrave Handbook of Sustainability in Fashion”. 

Clothing researchers in SIFO use the Nina Simone quote to discuss the connection between “care[ing]  about clothes, people, and nature. There is a connection between care as something practical and mundane, such as washing and repairing clothes, and the more general feeling of wishing to preserve something. The chapter spans from presenting knowledge on techniques used to maintain (care for) clothing such as washing, repair and storage; to discussing the prerequisites for caring about this.”  

Ingrid Haugsrud is the first author. The text is based on data from her MA thesis in Fashion and Society from OsloMet. In 2016, she performed a wardrobe study with six informants in their 20s, and 63 favorite garments that the informants valued especially were registered. These were the garments that their wearers cared for both in emotional and practical terms. The other authors, Ingun Grimstad Klepp and Kirsi Laitala, use these specific examples to paint a picture. Together, they have extensive experience with scientific publications about different care techniques such as washing, repair and clothing use, as well as repurposing of clothing in the wardrobe. As such the text summarizes a lot of knowledge in addition to relating it back to topical discussions today; what can lead to change and the relationship between technical lifespan and longer use time.  

The chapter is a product of the CHANGE-project. It uses wardrobe studies, empirical data and discusses a variety of topics such as how one environmental challenge, the volumes of clothing that are being produced, can be reduced. It points out that helping consumers to better take care of their clothes is not a vailable solution, as consumers would only take better care of their if they owned fewer pieces. For Ingrid, this work is not only important because it brings forth the important work she did on her MA thesis, but also because it is an early preview of what she will work on in her PhD, which is fittingly a part of the larger CARE-project. She hit the ground running by acquiring a publication in the field at the very start of her PhD journey.  

We have not read the book in its entirety thus far, yet we have to prize its wide subject matter. It does not only include the environmental side of sustainability, but also the cultural and social aspects. We were able to find much more information in this book compared to most books on topics such as clothing consumption and production of clothing and shoes in and outside of Western Europe and USA.

Photo booth boots possible change

Kinga Zablocka on 4. December 2024

As part of the SIFO presence at the recent Friluftsliv conference, Kate Fletcher, ran a “Photo Booth” to record the thoughts (in a thought bubble!) of conference delegates about clothing and nature. Delegates responses ranged from desirable practical qualities of clothes for use outdoors, to the feelings that clothes imbue; and from aspiration about the potential length of life and compostability of clothes, to questions about whether clothes are needed at all when living en plein air!

A huge thank you to all those who took part and to the conference organisers for hosting us.

Kate Fletcher with a Photo Booth participant.

Decentering Durability: Decarbonizing and Decolonizing Ideas and Practices of Long-Lasting Clothes

Kinga Zablocka on 2. December 2024

Authors: Kate Fletcher and Anna Fitzpatrick

Abstract

Durability is widely recognized as a key feature of materially resource-ful, lower-carbon clothing lives. Yet most of what is known about long-lasting garments is rooted in Euro-American ways of thinking, andreproduces its structures, priorities, values and resulting actions. Thispaper brings a decolonial concern to understandings of clothing durabil-ity to enlarge the conceptual boundaries around it, including those thatbreak apart dominant ideas and approaches to clothing durability inorder to show difference. It presents both the “workings” and the“findings” of a small research project, ‘Decentering Durability’, examin-ing both how research is conducted as well as what is uncovered at the intersection of decolonizing and resource-efficient, decarbonizing agen-das for fashion.

Click here for the full article (tandfonline.com) or contact the authors for a copy.

Announcing the publication of Decentering Durability: Decarbonizing and Decolonizing Ideas and Practices of Long-Lasting Clothes

Kinga Zablocka on 29. November 2024

Just published in Fashion Theory, an article exploring durability through a decolonial lens. The research it builds on was conducted as part of the LASTING project, led by our very own Kirsi Laitala and funded by the Research Council of Norway.

The article, written by Kate Fletcher and Anna Fitzpatrick, is open access. Please share widely. Grateful thanks to all those who participated in the research. Link to article here

From the abstract: Durability is widely recognized as a key feature of materially resourceful, lower-carbon clothing lives. Yet most of what is known about long-lasting garments is rooted in Euro-American ways of thinking, and reproduces its structures, priorities, values and resulting actions. This paper brings a decolonial concern to understandings of clothing durability to enlarge the conceptual boundaries around it, including those that break apart dominant ideas and approaches to clothing durability in order to show difference. It presents both the “workings” and the “findings” of a small research project, ‘Decentering Durability’, examining both how research is conducted as well as what is uncovered at the intersection of decolonizing and resource-efficient, decarbonizing agendas for fashion.

hiWOOL project

Kinga Zablocka on 11. November 2024

Network for heritage and innovation for the future of WOOL

The hiWOOL project – Network for heritage and innovation for the future of WOOL – was an initiative by “Save the Portuguese Wool” Association, launched in 2015 with the aim of promoting the sustainability of wool and safeguarding of the culture and heritage traditions in Portugal.

Funded by the Bilateral Relations Fund, hiWOOL aimed to share knowledge between Portugal and Norway concerning the sustainability of wool and the exploitation of wool products for small producers of indigenous sheep breeds, based on studying similarities and differences between the two countries.

On 12th may, 2021, the project started with the first meeting gathering all partners, with a brief presentation of the activities to be developed, made by the proposing team, a discussion on the parameters that should be selected for the characterization of wool fibers was conducted.

The start of the project was also celebrated with the Shearing Day, at Quinta da Fonte Santa, in Caneças-Portugal, on which 150 sheep of the Bordaleira Serra da Estrela breed, belonging to  shepherd Virgílio Ricardo were shorn.

During the project, field work was carried out in both countries, including workshops on the development of wool products and investigation on the wool tradition in museums and archives (click here for more information). The main achievements and results has been presented on the partners’ web pages and in social media, during the project timeline, and a final seminar.

The hiWOOL project features the collaboration of the Selbu Spinneri AS (Norway) and Multilãs, Unipessoal, Lda (Portugal) companies, the research centers  Consumption Research Norway SIFO, Oslo Metropolitan University and the D_TEX Lab – Textile Development Laboratory of the Architecture school from the Lisbon University and the local support of the Wool Museum in Covilhã and the Folk Museum in Oslo.

Both teams are now analyzing and characterizing the national wools, and results from that work will  be shared on the partners web pages and social networks.

Participants Norway (SIFO)

  • Ingun Grimstad Klepp
  • Lisbeth Løvbak Berg

Other participants Norway

Tone Skårdal Tobiasson
Selbu Spinneri

From the WPE Lab

Textile Development Laboratory of the Architecture school from the Lisbon University


Reading into Norwegian Wool

Kinga Zablocka on 20. February 2012

Summary

This is an annotated bibliography intended to orient readers within literature about Norwegian wool. It emphasizes new literature, focuses on clothing textiles, and includes sources written in both Norwegian and English. This research was undertaken as part of the project Valuing Norwegian Wool initiated by the National Institute for Consumer Research (SIFO) in partnership with the Nordic Initiative, Clean and Ethical (NICE) to further our collective knowledge of Norwegian wool as a sustainable, ethical, and valuable natural resource.

Link to full report here (oda.oslomet.no)