Time to celebrate! Traditional costumes, the craftmanship and social practice from Norway, and summer farming (seter and fäbod) in both Norway and Sweden are now on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list!
This gives an unexpected boost to the Amazing Grazing project and puts some recent and older publications in a new light.
First and foremost a big congratulations to years and years of hard work from Norwegian and Swedish organizations to put these two intangible cultural heritage traditions on the radar of the global work with protecting the many disappearing or vulnerable cultural practices.
For summer farming at fäbod and seter: knowledge, traditions and practices related to the grazing of outlying lands and artisan food production, this is more related to cows and goats, and milking in Norway, however, the Cultural Ministry, when announcing the win on their web-page, chose a picture of (amazing) grazing sheep as their illustration! Traditionally, sheep in Norway were also integral in this practice. (As I can attest to, my father spent the summers of his youth at the family farm mountain seter, shepherding both sheep and cows.) It was the Swedish government, not the Norwegian, who fronted this application.
The Norwegian government, on the other hand, fronted the application of traditional costumes (bunad) in Norway, their craftsmanship and social practice.
The point is, for Clothing Research, that we need to understand ‘local’ dress better, and that the bunad is one of possibly many (or a few) dress practices where local is important, being very concrete and related to the material aspects (the textiles, the embroidery yarns, the sewing), but also the understanding of being ‘from a place’. This is part of a concrete use of clothing that enables being a part of a geographic community, a fibershed. This is described in this paper on Local clothing: What is that and how an environmental policy concept is understood.
The under-pinning idea that clothing is culture, is important here, and a big win, and exactly what is missing in the EU textile strategy.
We also notice the rise of other similar inscribes into the UNESCO list:
The women’s ceremonial costume in the Eastern region of Algeria: knowledge and skills associated with the making and adornment of the ‘Gandoura’ and the ‘Melehfa’
Custom of Korean costume: traditional knowledge, skills and social practices in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
Craftsmanship of traditional woven textile Kente
The result of these two inscriptions will be a renewed interest in the cultural heritage, is assumed, but the organizations behind the applications have big plans for recruiting the younger generations and leveraging more interest both nationally and globally. 150 years ago, there were 100 000 summer seter or fäbo locations in Norway and Sweden, today there are 750 in active use in Norway, and somewhere between 200 or 250 in Sweden.
On the bunad side, the situation is brighter: there are 450 different traditional costumes in Norway, and an estimated 80% of Norwegian women own a traditional costume, and 20% of all men, this number is however, on the rise.
So what happens in the years to come, will be very interesting to follow!
Dec. 13th 2024 15-16 CET (3-4 pm) and Jan. 16th 2025 15-16 CET (3-4 pm)
Two consecutive talks by Consumption Research Norway SIFO at OsloMet First one with Prof. Ingun Klepp and Tone Tobiasson and in January Kate Fletcher.
December 13th: Prof. Ingun Klepp, Professor at the National Institute for Consumer Research, and Tone Tobiasson, Author and journalist, from Oslo, Norway. One of the most passionate and influential tandems in the textile research / policy space, with a long track record of pioneering research projects that changed our understanding of the use phase of garments, post consumer textile flows and plastification of fashion.
January 16th. Kate Fletcher is one of the most renown sustainable fashion researchers. Her work, including that on systems change, post-growth fashion, fashion localism, decentering durability, Earth Logic and nature relations both defines and challenges the field of fashion, textiles and sustainability. She has written and/or edited 13 books available in eight languages, and in 2022 she was identified by author Margaret Atwood as a visionary. Kate is a co-founder of the Union of Concerned Researchers in Fashion. Her most recent work is about design, clothing and nature.
Big congrats in order! WOOLUME recently got some more good news: ‘We are pleased to inform you that “Thermoregulation and Soil Moisture Management in Strawberry Cultivation Mulched with Sheep Wool” by Jan Broda, Andrzej Gawlowski, Monika Rom, Tomasz Kukulski, Katarzyna Kobiela-Mendrek has been published in Applied Sciences and is available online’:
Due to its beneficial and unique insulating properties, wool mulch ensures a proper microclimate on the soil surface, preventing the overheating of the soil during the summer heat and protecting excessive cooling during cold nights. The wool spread on the soil surface minimises the fluctuations between the soil’s day and night temperature.
The fluctuations do not exceed 2–3 degrees on hot summer days, which are five times smaller than for the control plot. Due to its excellent absorption capacity, wool mulch ensures high rainwater retention, providing a humid environment during drought. The performance of the wool mulch in the soil thermoregulation and water retention is better than that of other organic mulching materials of plant origin. For wool, the temperature fluctuations recorded in summer are two times smaller.
The water retained in wool is released into the soil more slowly, ensuring a longer-term higher water content in strawberries’ root zones. In addition to being beneficial for plant growth, wool is difficult to biodegrade and maintain its properties for a long time.
The application of wool as mulch in strawberry cultivation was analysed to find a solution for the rational use of wool from mountain sheep. In the plantation, the experimental plots mulched with wool, straw, and bark were appointed. The plots were monitored during the experiment, while the soil temperature and moisture content were measured.
The data collected in two-hour intervals were analysed, taking into account air temperature and falls registered in the local meteorological station. Additionally, the progress of mulch biodegradation was tracked. The changes in the wool morphology that occurred by biodegradation were observed during microscopic examinations using the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). It was stated that wool mulch plays an essential role in thermoregulation of the soil surface, prevents the overheating of the soil during the summer heat, and protects soil against excessive cooling during cold nights.
The wool mulch minimizes the fluctuations between the soil’s day and night temperature. The fluctuations do not exceed 2–3 degrees on hot summer days, which are five times smaller than for the control plot. The wool retains large amounts of rainwater several times its weight. The water is then slowly released, providing the growing plants with a moist environment during a longer rainless period.
Moreover, wool is difficult to biodegrade and maintains its properties for a long time, lasting longer than one vegetation season. Compared to straw and bark, the temperature fluctuations recorded for wool are two times smaller, and its effectiveness in water management is considerably better. The beneficial impact of the wool mulch ensuring favourable conditions for strawberry growth was explained by the specific wool structure and its unique properties.
Author: Lynda Grose, designer, author, educator Professor Fashion Design and Critical Studies, California College of the Arts
Aim of study
Goodwill Label Stories is based on the premise that everyday people may be willing to publicly indicate their second hand purchases and that this coding could be leveraged as a potent tool to challenge the power of brands in perpetuating the ‘culture of the new’. Three questions guide the study:
-Could a label be deployed to speed the uptake of resale purchases by economically diverse customers?
-What latent emotional associations with second hand may hinder or be leveraged to enable this goal?
-Can garments be activated to directly engage the broader public?
Study objective:
-To surface current attitudes to second hand garments, across a wide demographic of wearers
-To actively diversify the voices in sustainable fashion practice and education
-To ‘create and share new narratives based on sharing and abundance’ (Forum for the Future 2021)
Context: influence or inspiration
Building on previous research conducted in collaboration with anthropologist Sydney Martin (Grose, Martin 2017), this study was initially prompted by my impulse to ‘flash’ a Goodwill label to counter the righteous signaling by wearers sporting ‘sustainable’ branded garments. Some years later, at the 2021 Textile Exchange conference set in Dublin, Ireland, economic anthropologist, Jason Hickel, delivered a informative and hopeful keynote address on de-growth. At the end of the five-day conference, Paul Marchant, CEO of Primark, made closing remarks, which began:
‘I make no apologies for being a large volume retailer.
We bring sustainable fashion to our customers at a price they can afford’.
This stance from Primark’s leader signaled that despite the science, the fashion sector would remain unyielding to deep systemic change. Yet, Marchant’s statement also delivered a blunt critique of the current sustainable fashion movement; its expense, its privileged market, and its inaccessibility to lower income-level customers.
The irony of a fast-fashion brand claiming its products to be sustainable while also delivering well-founded critique of sustainable fashion as it is currently practiced prompted me to reboot the study:
-to investigate if a stigma exists around second hand garments for lower income level customers
-to bring these stigmas to the surface so they can be re-examined anew
-to help popularize more second-hand purchases
The method was also inspired by Michael Swaine’s Mending for the People, Kate Fletcher’s Local Wisdom, and Daver Isay’s Story Corp.
How do you go about using this method?
Seated in a Goodwill store by the cash register, I invite randomly selected shoppers to contribute to the study by giving their opinion on the concept and opting to label their newly purchased garment.
Two simple questions guide the conversations:
Would you identify your garment as second hand using a label on the outside?
Why?
Why not?
The responses and reflections are audio-recorded and the participant’s body language captured in writing. When people opt in, I sew the label onto the garment free of charge, working with the participant to decide the best position and treatment. The person is also photographed wearing or holding the garment. Themes from the conversations are then analyzed and collated. Stories, images and particularly succinct comments are presented out again in the form of posters, conference slides, exhibitions, and published articles/papers.
A story:
One woman in a Goodwill store lingered by the station, watching people choosing to label their garment and noted:
‘This is a really interesting project…but I wouldn’t do it (label my garment). I guess that says something about me’. I reassured the customer that there were no right or wrong answers, no judgements. “I know’, she said. ‘This is a really good project’ and she continued to watch the interactions and process for some time.
For me, this indicated a cognitive ah-ha moment, where the norm of participating in hierarchical branding was recognized and the Goodwill label’s challenge to it appreciated. Labeling of the garment is secondary to these conversations and the realizations.
How could this be used by others
This study can be used by researchers, educators and students relatively easily. Set-up is simple, requiring a domestic portable sewing machine, a variety of colored threads, a seam-ripper, scissors, work table and a cell phone to take photos. A solid clean wall as a backdrop for photography is helpful. Student researchers would need to be pre-instructed in the art of active listening and ethnographic documentation.
It’s particularly valuable to do this study in low-income and ethnically diverse regions/neighborhoods, which are often unrepresented in fashion sustainability discourse. However, as noted below, there are insights to be gained at all demographic levels.
The woven Goodwill label was developed with permission from the organization. Other researchers/ educators would need to build a relationship with their local Goodwill to develop a label, work with a different organization or develop a generic ‘second-hand’ label for more general use.
It’s important to approach customers after they make a purchase, so that the decision to label the garment clearly comes from directly them as the owner of the piece. This avoids potential copyright liabilities for Goodwill/participating charity shop.
Share insights for those new to wardrobe studies
Engaging with members of the public about their own attitudes to clothing and sustainable fashion is exciting and fun. It bypasses the narrow lens through which brands view their customers and broadens the capacity of researchers and everyday people to engage in solutions for sustainable fashion.
What insights does the method generate?
-Goodwill Label Stories started with the assumption that there is a stigma associated with second-hand items for customers in a lower economic demographic, and that higher economic demographic customers would more readily opt into labeling their garment. In fact, many customers across all demographics are proud to shop at Goodwill and happy to have an opportunity to show that they do. Conversely, some higher economic demographic customers are afraid to be seen shopping at Goodwill by their peers.
-Contrary to brands finding the public uneducated about the complexities of sustainable fashion, I have found them to be very smart and informed about the root problem of overproduction. People are happy to be asked their opinion and have great ideas. For example:
‘It’s a public label. When it’s donated, it becomes public!’
‘It’s Goodwill certified!’
Other insights include the label being seen as:
-A sign of doing something good
-Knowing about the problem (of overproduction) and doing something about it
-Building community (that is normally invisible)
-Being kind to each other
Most recently, one participant noted the Goodwill label might, in itself, be a righteous signal!
Grose, L. Martin, S. (2017) Goodwill Label Research Project, in Opening up the Wardrobe: a methods book, by (2017) Kate Fletcher and Ingun Grimstad Klepp (Eds.), Novus Press
Join us for a thematic session at PLATE conference in Denmark (July 2025).
2025 is the last year for the CHANGE project and one of the closing activities is a thematic session at the Product Lifetimes and the Environment (PLATE) conference. The thematic session on “Rebound effects and critical views on product durability”, co-chaired by Irene Maldini, Ingun Klepp, Kirsi Laitala, Eléonore Maitre-Ekern, Harald Wieser welcomes contributions until November 29th, 2024. The conference will be held at Aalborg University in Denmark from the 2nd to the 4th of July, 2025, and you can read more here.
With this session we would like the PLATE community to press pause for a couple of days and reconsider: Are we moving in the right direction? What are the assumptions that underlie the claimed benefits of durability? Are our efforts really helping to reduce material depletion at a significant rate? What are the material and behavioural conditions that need to be met for durability to have the desired effect? And are these conditions present in real product lifetimes and in our everyday lives? What new ways of thinking can help us in advancing the field for more significant impact? These are questions that we (co-chairs of this session) find very relevant today and would love to address together with the presenting authors, while building on the quality research that we know this community can deliver.
A new initiative from Sweden has surfaced, The Good Wool Collective, started by Lisa Bergstrand. As part of their inaugural webinar, Australian Wool Innovation’s Angus Ireland and I gave talks.
The theme was the shortcomings of EU’s Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) and how it disadvantages natural fibers. The audience was mainly Nordic brands, but also some from further afield.
Lisa Bergstrand is a wonderful Swedish woman with an extensive design background who has embraced wool and its benefits, while Angus Ireland has been an important driver in the PEF process, and for wool’s sustainability credentials, and part of the ongoing work in PEFCRs. He is Program Manager for Fibre Advocacy and Eco Credentials at AWI, with extensive experience in wool’s environmental impact and advocacy in EU sustainability initiatives.
During the hour and a half long webinar with breakout-rooms towards the end, Angus Ireland first described the role of the wool industry in the PEF process, but also the work outside ‘the box’ in Make The Label Count (click here), and who are key players in this landscape. Next, he went on to PEF’s 16 parameters, with details about shortcomings and how plastic waste and microplastic release are not accounted for. With recent publications from Nature (click here for access) and from Changing Markets Foundation, have more or less upended the arguments that we do not have enough knowledge on microplastic release during laundering (a main argument from industry), as the Precautionary Principle is now being called into action, as laundering only represents a microscopic percentage of the total release over time, according to the Nature study.
The endemic bad quality of data and questionable parameters were Angus Ireland’s main focus. He also brought into play Consumption Research Norway’s research that relates to duration of service, that France’s Ecobalyse has been sniffing around, alongside the natural fiber sector seeing a ‘French opening’ with ADEME’s approach (sorry, only Scandinavians will see the humor in a French opening).
There is hope, as Angus Ireland described, even though the new LCA commissioned and peer-reviewed, still has not been accepted un GaBi – the database used by the EU – a process that has taken close to two years with no results so far. The Holistic Durability Working Group in PEF for apparel and footwear will hopefully succeed in their work to make for a more even playing-field.
Next up was myself, questioning whether natural fibers will ever get a fair rating in LCAs. I did a historic backtrack to the Made-By assessment tool in 2011 (wool labelled as ‘red’, recycled polyester as ‘green’) and fast forwarded to the Pulse of Fashion Report in 2017, where recycled polyester is what consumers should be ‘enhanced’ to choose. Certainly, over cotton, but obviously over all natural fibers. Amazing Grazing and other wool projects, such as the Textile farmer were introduced to the audience.
Alternative thinking needed
Changing Markets Foundation recent report Fashion’s Plastic Paralysis: How brands resist change and fuel microplastic pollution, was also something I came back to, especially the implications for our health related to microplastics. This is, as Angus talked about, something that should enter under the precautionary principle, not be continually dragged out in endless debates and delaying tactics.
Talking about “durability” and the general misunderstanding that ‘more durable products’ are going to save the world, when we are drowning in products, I went on to talk about TPR and work by the OR Foundation, which has been inspired by the waste audit approach.
My talk then turned to the functional unit, and pointed to a new PhD (click here to access) that has raised the million-dollar question not addressed in PEF; what is actually the functional unit for apparel? Is it number of wears, really? I used the example of my bunad and my daughter’s imminent marriage (wedding dresses are worn once, at least by the first owner), and my national costume’s 50 years of service, while my daughter’s is inherited from my mom, so the functional unit and duration of service will be exponential. I chose my bunad for the event (first part) and another not-enough-worn for the second disco-dancing part, and the functional unit of feeling worthy, safe, socially acceptable and dressed for the occasion – delivered!
Summing up, it all comes down to common sense, which is currently lacking in the whole shebang, and that the small ray of hope is that France has understood that solutions and how one evaluates companies and products needs to address the business model that underpins everything, not the product-specific criteria. This was followed by passionate and very good questions and engaging break-out discussions, showing that once one gains insight into the process surrounding PEF, people in the industry understand that the EU is currently headed on a fast track in the wrong direction.
Some more thoughts on this theme can be accessed here, if you’re on LinkedIn.
Chalmers University In the heart of Gothenburg hosted the defense for Erik Klint on September 6th. Klint’s PhD, consisting of 5 published articles and some additional published material, was discussed with professional curiosity and benevolence, and the atmosphere was positive throughout.
Author: Ingun Grimstad Klepp
It is not easy to work interdisciplinary, but as the head of the Grading committee Professor Michael Zwicky Hauschild, Denmark’s Technical University summed up: Here we have well-defined research questions, identified knowledge gaps and an exciting journey between the two different academic traditions, a travel from environmental impact to psychology and then back again to Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs).
Functional unit must define a function
The work’s most important conclusion is that what people do – and what psychologists call behavior – must be included in LCAs. The functional unit cannot be kilos of laundry, but rather what the function is or can be. The most important function of clean clothes is to make us feel socially safe. This is the functional unit that Klint argues for and was supported by the LCA expert from the Technical University of Denmark. A FU must be a function, something the product or test is used for in order to achieve an outcome.
There was a lot of discussion about this point during the defense, both from the opponent, Professor Wencke Gwozdz, Justus Liebig University of Giessen, and from the audience. Because: Doesn’t laundry also have other functions? And can this be a function or functions that is or are actually difficult to measure? Yes, but as Klint demonstrates, it is this (that is, what is needed to perceive something as clean) that has changed the most and also has the greatest impact on the environmental footprint of laundering.
Both during the discussion and in the thesis, Klint draws in clothes and their functions, and I took the opportunity to point out that the use of LCAs is much more problematic for clothing than for laundry, and that his work will thus possibly have greater consequences for this field.
Better data
After the defense, the supervisors and the committee took part in a tour of the Living Lab, flats inside the Chalmers campus area that has been trialing new solutions and more community-based services. A shared laundry room was located centrally in the building by the entrance, and together with a pleasant living room that included tools for repairing clothes, exercising, or a space just for hanging out. The Living Lab has student housing and apartments, and those who live there must approve that data from their laundering is included in research.
Greg Peters explains how data was collected from the washing machines. He holds up a chip similar to those sewn into the clothes to provide data on washing frequency. Not surprisingly, the ethical aspects of this type of data collection were also discussed during the defense.
Supervisor Gregory Peters Professor, Environmental Systems Analysis, Technology Management and Economics, proudly showed off how they had modified the machines to collect data and also the chips they had sewn into the clothes to collect details about washing frequency – among other things. In his work, Klint contrasts what people say and what they do. And the difference is big! Not least, this applies to washing “full machines”, where the result shows that that what people think is a full machine, varies greatly. This has major consequences for the environmental impact of laundry, which easily becomes more than twice as high if the filling rate drops to half capacity. In the comparison of self-reported data and data from the Living Lab, Klint also used pictures to illustrate what the machine looked like when it was fully loaded. This gave a clear picture closer to the actual degree of filling, than words alone.
Numbers and culture
The work done by Klint is based on quantitative analyzes and a lot of number crunching – as is expected in a thesis that seeks to improve an LCA tool. But Klint himself found that the cultural aspects of cleanliness and changes in these, alongside that there are so many different ways of thinking about how things should be sorted and what can be washed together with what, were a very interesting aspect to explore. It was thus with great respect for the nuances of human nature that his analyzes were made. He found that attitudes towards the environment played no role in washing frequency, but that other variables could explain quite a bit. Another nail in the coffin for the idea of ”enlightenment” as important for changing people’s actions.
Increased sensitivity to disgust, shame, or cleanliness norms were associated with a higher washing frequency per person. Thus, most important were shame and disgust – i.e. the discomfort perceived in what dirt and smell causes in social settings.
Both concepts were discussed based on psychological theories and literature on these feelings. Klint argued that people do not load a load of laundry to use (or not use) energy, but to have clean clothes, or because the laundry basket is full. This is obvious – but as long as LCAs are developed with a technical starting point, e.g. how efficient a machine is – it is necessary to point this out and change the LCAs so that what people actually do, is taken into account.
Changes in technology and infrastructure also change habits, and this interaction disappears if only kilograms of laundry are studied, not the need for clean clothes. This then immediately raises bigger questions because what is really a need? And how is it that what is perceived as necessary, common, decent, etc. changes? Klint couldn’t answer everything, and this was not expected. Nevertheless, we couldn’t help ourselves – because his work opens up big questions that will probably become even more urgent if we transfer the discussion from laundry to clothing.
Despite the fact that we at SIFO is neither an LCA expert, nor a strong psychological approach, the conclusions was just as much what we have – or could have – done a lot. The will to find better data than what people themselves report, and not least the combination of technical and social science approaches, made the work familiar in a certain sense. There were also plenty of SIFO references in all the articles.
Cheers for Chalmers
It was fun to take part in this defense, everything from small technical details and information, to the big questions, were handled quickly and professionally. There was a good mix of friendly conviviality and academic celebration over the ceremony.
In the back, from the left, supervisor Greg Peters, Professor of Quantitative Sustainability Assessment, Scientific Director Swedish Life Cycle Center, Division of Environmental Systems Analysis, Department of Technology Management and Economics, Chalmers University of Technology, Professor Lars-Olof Johansson University of Gothenburg, Department of Psychology, Grading committee member Dr Alessio Mastrucci, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. Next row: Grading committee members Professor Michael Zwicky Hauschild, Denmark’s Technical University and Professor Ingun Grimstad Klepp, Oslo Metropolitan University, Opponent Professor Wencke Gwozdz, Justus Liebig University of Giessen. In front Erik Klint.
For me, this was an educational trip that shows that other subjects and traditions have a lot to contribute, but also that ideas and traditions we have advocated for decades, such as the importance of the use phase, are indeed supported in other subjects and methodologies.
In the recently published report, What Fuels Fashion?, issued by Fashion Revolution, Consumption Research Norway SIFO’s suggestion for a Targeted Producer Responsibility method has received substantial attention alongside the Plastic Elephant report. In addition, the ruling by the Norwegian Consumer Authority against the Higg consumer-facing label also is brought forward.
All in all, What Fuels Fashion? gives much attention to the research from Oslo Metropolitan university, which is an important part of the Wasted Textiles project. What Fuels Fashion? is a single-issue, special edition of Fashion Revolution’s annual Fashion Transparency Index. They have reviewed 250 of the world’s largest fashion brands and retailers and ranked them according to their level of disclosure on climate and energy-related data in their own operations but primarily in their supply chains.
A key finding is that there is hardly any transparency around over-production. “The fashion industry wants to have its cake and eat it too. Most big fashion brands (89%) do not disclose how many clothes they make annually. Alarmingly, nearly half (45%) fail to disclose neither how much they make nor the raw material emissions footprint of what is produced, signalling the industry prioritises resource exploitation whilst avoiding accountability for environmental harms linked to production.”
On page 36 in the report, we can read: “Governments are now cracking down on greenwashing. In addition to investigations into several brands’ environmental claims taking place in the UK and Australia, the Norwegian Consumer Authority ruled the Higg Materials Sustainability Index (Higg MSI) unlawful to support such claims from retailers. These actions, which have resulted in accountability, illustrate why transparency is crucial to enable change. Nonetheless, the need for robust evidence-backed claims remains a persistent issue.”
Furthermore, on page 38, we find this quote: “Already we are seeing that overestimating the importance of garment durability and underestimating the environmental impact of overproduction is shaping the policy landscape. Research by Oslo Met University reveals the “Plastic Elephant in the Room” – which critiques the EU’s Sustainable Textiles Strategy, particularly its focus on durability. The research argues that the most effective way to reduce the fashion industry’s environmental impact is to cut production volumes rather than merely extending product lifespans (and that focusing on durability unintentionally supports synthetic fossil fuel-derived fibres).” Let’s hope someone from DG ENVI and DG GROW actually read this report!
On page 39, the report has a full-fledged explanation of TPR as a viable alternative to EPR (see illustration). Which is good news for the on-going discussion on how we can make fast fashion actually ‘out of fashion’ with regulatory instruments, and halt business as usual. Being taken seriously in such an important report, will hopefully garner further attention to SIFO’s research.
Authors: Dr. Zoe O. John, Dr Garrath T. Wilson, Dr Val Mitchell, School of Creative Arts & Design, University of Loughborough.
Aim of study
The research objectives were to understand the practices of consumption, use and disposal of clothing through a liminal period and whether this gives insight into ‘better’ practices of use. The research was explored through the physical and emotional changes of pregnancy and the approximate year following birth. The focus of the study was to see if an individual’s sense of physical and emotional comfort, including their sense of identity, changed over a liminal period, and whether these were compromised or bolstered through what an individual wore.
The research questions driving this were:
1. What are the drivers of the consumption, use and disposal of clothing during pregnancy and the postpartum period?
2. Can you dress ‘sustainably’ during pregnancy and postpartum?
3. Can you dress ‘sustainably’ whilst supporting your identity during pregnancy and into the postpartum period?
Method
This was the fieldwork for my PhD research, a constructivist study with a feminist lens (Letherby, G. 2003), the research was conducted with a bond of five women over nearly two years, inspired by my experiences of dressing through pregnancy and the postpartum period and through discussions I had with others going through a similar period. As the project developed it seemed obvious to me that I needed to be studying participant ‘wardrobes’ and using their clothes as a catalysis for the exploration of the themes I wanted to examine.
I visited my participants 4 times (twice in pregnancy and twice postpartum). Each visit looked at the same three themes (consumption, use and disposal). By invitation we would sit by their ‘wardrobes’ (these could also be a chest of draws, hanging rails or a whole room) and participants would talk through what they were or were not wearing, where it came from (purchase, gifted etc.) or where it was going (passed on again, the charity shop, waste etc.), how it made them feel and ultimately why they responded as they did. I recorded our conversations on a Dictaphone and took photos of the clothes they told me about, as well as their ‘wardrobes’.
Picture 1 – A birdy top that ‘makes me feel generic’ – Iris –WS1
Participants were recruited through social media and word of mouth. They were based in the South East of England. Initially, 8 participants were taken forward, but for the final thesis only data from 5, all first-time full-term pregnancies, participants were used. No specific characteristics were asked for in the recruitment process, but they all ended up being in a committed relationship, Caucasian and with a comfortable socio-economic background.
I did play around with ideas around using visualising tools etc. and took these into the wardrobe studies, but the data was already so rich, that they were not needed.
I used thematic analysis as popularised and researched by Braun and Clarke (2006 to 2021) with support for the process of analysis from Taylor-Powell and Renner (2003). I found the lack of information on how people analysed their data frustrating, so I included a section on the literal step-by-step analysis process in my thesis (3.7.1, John, Z.O. 2012).
One of the nicest things about conducting this research was that almost every time I shared what I was doing with other women who had been pregnant (some many years previously), they regaled me with stories of their own experiences and reflections of dressing through pregnancy, and those first few months that follow it, and both the internal and external challenges in locating ourselves with help and hindrance from the clothes we wear. I believe that sharing real stories is the essence of the human experience and a segue to understanding how we can better design for and serve the world around us.
Picture 2 – A dress that ‘doesn’t excite me that much’ – Lily WS2
The data generated was used to inform my PhD research and academic papers based on the thesis.
You can follow the methodology and carry out the same mechanics, but what became clear to me was that the outcomes from this exploration were shaped by my experience, the specific experiences of my participants, and the relationships that we developed over nearly two years of wardrobes studies, and just as every pregnancy and every baby are different, so too is every experience of dressing through pregnancy and into the postpartum phase. However, this research does not provide any data on the consumption, use or disposal of clothing for different socio-economic, cultural or geolocated studies. It also does not take into account practices during liminal times such as living, dressing and pregnancy through a global pandemic, nor how identity was constructed through clothing when most of us were at home in our pyjamas till noon. Although there was research conducted within this space, this project places itself firmly in a pre-Covid time. However, it acknowledges that it is likely that aspects around the ‘what and how’ of our practices of dress, and our relationship with clothes, may have been changed through the experience we had during that time.
Wardrobe studies can offer several insights for understanding sustainable practices and emotional attachment for better practices, but they can also offer insights into, among other things, external factors such as seasonal or economic conditions and the impact of global events.
This was the first study to explore what it means to dress sustainably through pregnancy and the postpartum period and as such offers a number of opportunities for continuous exploration. The results could be used to support design work, business development, systems or services or used as a springboard to further academic studies. See 8.4 John, Z.O., 2021. for an extended number of prospects identified.
Wardrobe studies are an intimate exploration tool and that as such they should be treated with the utmost respect and sensitivity. However, this also means that they are rich with life experience and therefore can offer deep insights into the human experience.
Picture 3 – Daisy’s ‘room’ – Daisy WS1
My experience is that people like talking about the clothes they wear and the stories behind them. What happens as they tell these stories is a sub-narrative that offers insight into why we make the choices we do and therefore, how we can work with, rather than against, our human nature, to move towards better practices of consumption, use and disposal.
References:
Braun, V. and Clarke, V. (2006) ‘Qualitative Research in Psychology Using thematic analysis in psychology Using thematic analysis in psychology’, Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), pp. 77–101.
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Three days of multidisciplinary perspectives to overcome our society’s obsession with economic growth, sounds like a good way to round out the month of June? Obviously…
Consumption Research’s Irene Maldini took the trip to Spain to talk about durability’s role in our obsession with growing the textile sector, perhaps one of the sectors that really needs the opposite, or?
June 19th-21st 1200 academics, activists, and civil society organizations came together at the ESEE/Degrowth conference in Pontevedra, Spain to discuss the urgency, barriers and levers to enable a post-growth society as a way to tackle the current poly-crisis. The conference was hosted by University of Vigo. It was the first time for this conference to include a session on clothing and another one on consumer goods more generally, chaired by Katia Dayan Vladimirova.
Economic activity is a means for humans to live a good life considering that of other beings. But confusing the role of economic growth with an end in itself is hindering progress towards a more sustainable society. In the sector of clothing, fear of confronting economic growth is preventing sustainability actions to focus on the challenge that really matters: reducing production volumes.
In this context and as part of the CHANGE project, SIFO researcher Irene Maldini presented a study conducted together with Professor Ingun Klepp on the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles, published in March 2022. In an analysis of the policy making process, they identified two main factors that hindered the inclusion of measures to tackle production volumes in the strategy:
a) the framing of the strategy in terms of competitiveness, with a focus on companies as main stakeholders, and the associated fear of economic decline in a market where fewer products are sold, and b) a policy-making process prioritizing input from anecdotal knowledge (through participation of interested and available stakeholders), rather than empirical knowledge on the effect of applied actions or lack thereof. As a result, the EU Strategy avoided a focus on production volumes, aiming instead at the softer and politically objective of improving product durability, with questionable environmental benefits.
This was just one of the presentations analyzing how the growth logic underlies western policy and law, preventing significant progress towards climate targets, and the only one focusing on environmental policy for consumer goods.
The conference included scholars from a variety of disciplines such as environmental economics, political science, geography, law, marketing, indigenous knowledge, industrial ecology, etc. who discussed very diverse subjects related to social inequality and the environmental crisis. Next year the event will take place in Oslo, hopefully an opportunity to consolidate an international community committed to question consumerism and our dependence on growing volumes of consumer goods in circulation close to home. Next year’s conference will be June 24th till 27th, and CHANGE will plan something in conjunction with the conference, so clear your diary already now!
Economic activity is a means for humans to live a good life considering that of other beings. But confusing the role of economic growth with an end in itself is hindering progress towards a more sustainable society. In the sector of clothing, fear of confronting economic growth is preventing sustainability actions to focus on the challenge that really matters: reducing production volumes.
In the photo: Irene Maldini, Meital Peleg Mizrachi, Amy Twigger Holroyd, Katia Dayan Vladimirov.
Here the abstract:
More durable, or fewer products? A case study of the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles
The volume of durable goods consumed in Europe, and clothing in particular, has increased dramatically in the last decades, with significant environmental damage globally (Manshoven et al., 2023; Niinimäki et al., 2020). While early environmental policy to mitigate such damage focused on better production and waste management, more recently, increasing product durability to extend product lifetime has become a central approach. In a review of EU and Norwegian environmental policy applicable to consumer goods, Heidenstrøm et al. (2021) found little focus on product lifetime between 2011-2015, and a massive increase in 2015-2020 in line with the growing influence of the circular economy framework.
However, the environmental benefits of product durability for clothing and other consumer goods are questionable. Achieving environmental savings from keeping products and materials longer in use presumes that there will be a reduction in the production of new items, but this expected effect has not been sufficiently studied. The empirical evidence that is used to support the durability approach is limited to comparative life cycle assessments of longer and shorter life products (see e.g. WRAP, 2012). Such studies build on a view of consumption that assumes but does not test the idea that durable goods delay replacement purchases and implicitly consider production decisions by companies as a process driven exclusively by demand, therefore taking the associated savings in the manufacture of new products for granted (Maldini et al., forthcoming). But wardrobe studies (Laitala and Klepp, 2022) and waste audits of textiles (Fashion for Good, 2022; Refashion, 2023) show that garments and accessories are massively discarded while still in good material condition. Moreover, only a minority of the clothes acquired are motivated by product replacement (Maldini, 2019). The drivers of production volumes decisions by clothing companies have not been thoroughly investigated, but a few case studies point to a variety of reasons behind such decisions including companies’ market expansion plans and the strengthening of their partnership with suppliers (see e.g. Paton, 2018). In short, the assumed effect of product durability on production volumes reductions is problematic.
This contribution builds on a case study of the 2022 EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles (European Commission, 2022) to show how, despite the lack of evidence mentioned above, product durability is promoted as a sustainable approach during the policy making process, while a direct focus on production volumes reductions was avoided through several mechanisms.
The study analyses how product durability and production volumes are regarded during the policy making process, on the basis of four aspects; 1) the strategy context, and its relation to other policy instruments and efforts, 2) the actors involved in the development of the strategy and their roles, 3) the discourse around product durability and production volumes, and how they are addressed during the policy making process, and 4) the knowledge base of the strategy; the sources of information that were considered to identify problems and applicable solutions. The material used to conduct the study includes policy and other publicly available documents, complemented by interviews with five key participants in the development of the strategy: one key employee of the European Commission, two members of external organizations that accompanied the development of the strategy from the early phase until it was released, and two key participants (and invited speakers) of the public consultation workshops. The interviews were conducted between February and April 2023.
Two main factors hindering the inclusion of product volumes reduction measures are identified: a) the framing of the strategy in terms of competitiveness, with a focus on companies as main stakeholders, and the associated fear of economic decline in a market where fewer products are sold and b) a policy-making process prioritizing input from anecdotal knowledge (through participation of interested and available stakeholders), rather than scientific findings or lack thereof.
The strategy aims at implementing the commitments of the European Green Deal (European Commission, 2019) and the Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP) (European Commission, 2020a), as well as the Industrial Strategy (European Commission, 2020b) and post-COVID Recovery Plan (European Commission, 2020c). The EU’s CEAP has a two-side agenda focusing on the transformation of industrial processes, increasing resource efficiency, reducing environmental impact and the use of raw materials and hence bringing economic benefits and business opportunities to companies (European Commission, 2020a). Furthermore, the environmental targets of the Green Deal were matched with the Industrial Strategy, and the economic concerns about recovery of the EU from the COVID-19 crisis. Within the European Commission, DG Environment and DG Grow shared responsibility over the development of the strategy, reinforcing its two-sided nature. In this context, the narrative of value retention associated to the circular economy was a good fit, as it was product durability. Yet targeting production volumes reductions was out of the scope.
Corporations, and business associations were central actors in the policy making process. They were invited to provide informal input in the preparatory phases of the strategy, setting the stage for a consultation process that also emphasized business actors as main stakeholders. The online survey was accessible to anyone, but companies had the capacity to provide extensive input, while the representation of other stakeholders was limited. Although the report of the public consultation mentions that several NGOs and government representatives called for direct measures in consumption reductions (PlanMiljø, 2022), only durability makes it to the concrete solutions listed in the strategy, with overconsumption and overproduction expected to decline as a result of product lifetime extension and reuse (European Commission, 2022).
A critical analysis of the state of the art in scientific knowledge would have confronted the approach outlined above, but the knowledge management in the policy making process did not prioritize reliability and completeness of information. Members of the scientific community stressing the centrality of production volumes were discredited, and the focus was placed on ensuring adherence from businesses. In using secondary, tertiary, and non-peer reviewed sources as a knowledge base, the information was simplified and generalized to an extent where it met the anecdotal knowledge shared by involved stakeholders.
In sum, the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles provides an example of how the growth logic continues to shape environmental policy, leading to measures and regulation with questionable environmental improvements, and hindering the development of more effective measures to reduce the impact of European consumption.
References
European Commission, 2022. EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles.
European Commission, 2020a. A new Circular Economy Action Plan. For a cleaner and more competitive Europe.
European Commission, 2020b. A New Industrial Strategy for Europe.
European Commission, 2020c. Europe’s moment: Repair and Prepare for the Next Generation.
European Commission, 2019. The European Green Deal.
Fashion for Good, 2022. Sorting for Circularity Europe.
Heidenstrøm, N., Strandbakken, P., Haugrønning, V., Laitala, K., 2021. Product lifetime in European and Norwegian policies. Oslo.
Laitala, K., Klepp, I.G., 2022. Review of clothing disposal reasons. Oslo.
Maldini, I., 2019. From speed to volume: reframing clothing production and consumption for an environmentally sound apparel sector, in: Nissen, N.F., Jaeger-Erben, M. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 3rd PLATE Conference. TU Berlin, Berlin, pp. 519–524. https://doi.org/10.14279/depositonce-9253
Maldini, I., Klepp, I.G., Laitala, K., forthcoming. The environmental impact of product lifetime extension: a literature review and research agenda. Clean. Responsible Consum.
Manshoven, S., Vercalsteren, A., Christis, M., De Jong, A., Schmidt, I., Grossi, F., Mortensen, L., 2023. Consumption and the environment in Europe’s circular economy.
Niinimäki, K., Peters, G., Dahlbo, H., Perry, P., Rissanen, T., Gwilt, A., 2020. The environmental price of fast fashion. Nat. Rev. Earth Environ. 1, 189–200. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-020-0039-9
Paton, E., 2018. H&M, a Fashion Giant, Has a Problem: $4.3 Billion in Unsold Clothes. New York Times.
PlanMiljø, 2022. Synopsis report on the consultation on the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles. Veksø.
Refashion, 2023. Characterisation study of the incoming and outgoing streams from sorting facilities.
WRAP, 2012. Valuing our Clothes: the Evidence Base. Technical Report.
