Artefacta conference

Kinga Zablocka on 20. February 2025

For the fourth time, University of Helsinki arranged the Artefacta conference. It brings together researchers and professionals interested in objects, material culture and our relationship to them (click here for full program helsinki.fi).

I had the great honor of opening the event with the talk “Product attachment in politics and wardrobes”. I described the development of the product-related research methods that Kirsi and I, and our colleagues at SIFO have worked with for close to 20 years. I also showed how the knowledge produced by such methods has become more relevant in the wake of emerging regulation aimed at apparel. It is a sad fact that as much as the EU quotes clothing research coming from SIFO in the knowledge summaries underpinning their policies, it is clear that they lack an actual understanding of our work. With that the potential for the polices to enact positive change (lower the environmental impact) is also greatly reduced.  

The talk was well received. However, it would have been more fitting if I had based the talk on my cultural history knowledge and shown how this context had been important in my own research. Furthermore, I could have reflected around how a lot of what is talked and written about clothing and the environment, sadly, does not touch upon cultural history at all.  

There is not enough time to do everything. The conference itself went more into depth on relationships and feelings than on the environment, climate, war, crises, with some exceptions. This gave a feeling of freedom. Many beautiful, empirical, thorough and thought-provoking presentations were presented. Being housed in the newly renovated main building of the university dating back to 1828-1832, our material surroundings could not have been more fitting, both spacious and stately. We moved between Greek statues and pillars with a view of the impressive view of the Storkyrkan standing right outside, built around the same time. Helsinki is a capital city, no doubt about it.

At the core of the Artefacta Conferences are objects and artefacts, as well as the materiality and material culture related to them. The Organising Committee, led by Riikka Räisänenin expressed that they welcomed “abstract proposals from all over the world and from interdisciplinary perspectives, including the fields of material culture studies, history, archaeology, anthropology, heritage science, conservation, craft science, art history, museology, ethnology, design and beyond”. Something they certainly succeeded in. Both the US and Australia made themselves known, and indeed the whole specter of artefact-adjacent disciplines were represented. From music historians who studied the chronology of different pieces starting with original sheets of music to art disseminators for an American museum specializing in aviation and space travel.

Thousand-year-old objects and perspectives on the future were presented. The latter was a great presentation by the only other Norwegian contribution to the program, by Georgina McDowal form Museums of Song og Fjordane. By positioning herself several hundred years in the future and describing how the archaeologist would have reported on the objects found at the bottom of the sea where Sogn og Fjordane is situated. The plastic life vest was perceived as a dangerous object and a symbol of the unrestrained use of plastic which has so prevalent in society in an unknown and uncomprehensible past.

The talk on “Is it Always Only Green” with Aarti Latkar and Neelakantan Poomangalath represented another reflection of plastic. They showed how in India, grass lawns are a symbol of the colonial times, with their sports and aesthetics, which is different from the associations in the western world. The meaning asides, it is interesting how grass spreads, most notably in the areas between inside and outside. It climbs on walls in the form of mats and can cover entire surfaces. “Plastification” was also a theme in her talk, and it was extensively covered.

There were many beautiful presentations, and a lot of work went in to the visual aspects, as mentioned previously. What is most striking in hindsight is how the presentation that I, and many other who I spoke with, will remember best was one without a single picture in it (including pictures of text). Julie Gorks was the speaker and she had conducted a wardrobe study on blind individuals’ wardrobes. “Blind touch: Feeling clothes as a material intimacy of blindness” omitted visuals completely out of the respect for the non-seeing members of society. She talked about how her participants experienced their clothes through smell and touch and how the sense of touched was used to “see” the garments, but also to get a feel of the garment. Colours had smells because of the pigments. The senses were present tenfold. Even the visual aspects had to be taken into account because the participants would be looked at by others. Their notion of colours, for instance, would be confronted with another way “to see”. This presentation was in the same session as Timo Rissanen’s talk on Australian leather title sashes and queer objects in museums’ collections.

This way, two marginalized groups and their material cultures were highlighted, showing the importance of research focused on smaller and specific phenomenon rather than the “normal” and “average”. The knowledge that comes out of this type of studies is valuable and can shed a light on aspects that can get lost in our daily lives. Doing research with differently abled individuals is one of many ways that could further clarify what it means to get and/or to be dressed. It was especially good to meet Timo again after approx. 20 years. The last we saw each other was at a conference which I helped arrange at OsloMet, long before we got that name. There is no digital evidence of the conference, but it is well remembered nonetheless.

Speaking of digital evidence (or lack thereof): The conference was brought to an end with the other key note speaker, Daniel Miller. Everybody was looking forward to this, ironically there was a material object that stood in his way; a lost passport (almost hard to believe in our digital age). Luckily Daniel was able to join us on the big screen and everybody did their best to make a note of what books he had in his shelfs.

The opinions on his talk were split. Daniel argued that he always had studied material culture and that there was not much difference between his studies on food in “Making love in the supermarket” and clothing in “The sari” and later his interest in information and communication technology. The conferencegoers did not necessarily agree on that point. The digital world is of course material, in the form of objects such as phones and tablets, and as such it also produces a lot of waste.

But pictures on the internet are not the same as on paper. Furthermore, the digital world has a lot of other characteristics. Spirited discussions followed over wine and dinner hosted by the university. Maybe this was his aim? Or maybe, as others pointed out, this lack of critique of digitalization pays off economically. Nobody was bored, truth be told, and it may be that the critique is connected to the high expectations ahead of his talk. It was a different experience for me and my talk. I am not only less known, but also mostly recognizable for my work with more culturally historical works with wool, washing clothes, bed linens and other kinds of unimportant objects.

With three sessions running simultaneously for two days from morning till evening, it was IMPOSSIBLE for me to see everything. In actuality, I could have been everywhere as everything was of interest. What’s more important than objects (and our relationship to them) is of course our relationship to each other. There was no lack in warm greetings and interesting exchanges, but for me one stands out, and that is my reunion with Mae Colburn.

She contributed with a poster presenting her and her mom’s collection of 600 wool skirts – believe it or not – which was inherited from her grandmother. The skirts did not stay on the poster, but showed up in different places in the form of small square pictures with different related motifs. Mae had also brought a postcard that showed a weave of a skirt made of the skirt fabric, melting the motif and the material together. Mae lives in New York and works as an artist in the crossroads between practicing weaving and academia. Since working at SIFO 15 years ago, she has developed into an artist and kept her fascination for wool (click here to check out Mae’s webside maecolburn.info).

One of the many things Mae did all those years ago was compiling a bibliography on wool, of course it is still readable but maybe used too sparingly? (link here (clothingresearch.oslomet.no)) What it certain is that her time at SIFO has changed her and us, and what is often forgotten is how important such meeting are and how lucky we are to be able to work together.  

– Ingun

When gender comes into play

tobiasson on 8. February 2025

Man and woman in Local Wisdom project.

Two portraits from the Local Wisdom project. Photo credits: Kerry Dean and Paige Green.

The second article from CHANGE with gender as a main focus has been published, authored by Kate Fletcher: Gender, Fashion, Sustainability in Clothing Cultures.

Text: Ingun Grimstad Klepp and Tone S. Tobiasson

Kate begins the article with a review of what is obvious to us who work in the field, most researchers, most informants are female. And her research question is How does gender affect clothing use practices in the Local Wisdom Project?

The way Kate places gender, clothing and sustainability together is an important point in the article, however it encompasses more: Kate has returned to her wealth of stories about clothes from the Local Wisdom project, which was carried out between 2009 and 2014, a total of 415 stories from a total of nine countries, of which 316 ‘practices of use’ ended up on the website and in the study, 20.6% of them are from men, 79% from women and also included one non-binary.

So, what are they saying? Kate does a simple analysis and finds the themes that women and men highlight. And believe it or not… men are interested in economics and technology, women in most other things. Researching gender and clothing is not easy, because much of what we can and will find are obvious truths. Thus it is important to remember that the claims of ‘truth’ also need to be documented, discussed and explained. We need systematic comparisons. We need to put into words the obvious and see the limitations in ourselves. We don’t need a sustainability discussion only for women. We need everyone to be involved and everyone to contribute. We cannot continue to leave out half of the population just because they, well… are men.

At the same time, there is another perspective: To the extent that men and women have very different approaches, this is also reflected in the policies that are developed. This is not discussed in Kate’s article, but her research gives us a clue as to why policy development today uses a ‘male language’ and a male approach with spreadsheets and data-sets as the basis; while women have a completely different language and approach. So ‘lost in translation’ is perhaps something that needs to be explored further, to make EU policy make sense for both genders.

Link to article, click here (intellectdiscover.com).

Link to the first article Comparing Male and Female Wardrobes: Gender Dynamics in the Practice of Dressing, authored by Vilde Haugrønning and Ingrid Haugsrud, can be found here.

Defibering the future

tobiasson on 4. February 2025

Visiting Norsk Tekstilgjenvinning

The Wasted Textiles project took the trip to Norsk Tekstilgjenvinning in Sandefjord, and were privy to an introduction to one of the few recycling projects that can actually have something to offer, as the founder Pål Erik Haraldsen has understood the limitations and that it may sometimes be wise to say ‘no’.

Photo, behind, from left: Anita Austigard, IVAR, Bjørn Erik Rui, Vesar, Kristiane Rabben, Mepex, Jens Måge SIRK Norge, Anne-Lene Lundsett, RIG, Ingun Grimstad Klepp, SIFO, Håkon Bratland, SIRKNorge, Alexandra Eng, Revise/NG, journalist, Sofie Nesse Horsberg, Revise/NG. Front row, from left Nazia Nourin Moury og Solveig Birgitte Jacobsen Aarak, both NTNU.

As February started, the SIFO project Wasted Textiles arranged a study tour of the start-up company that has been praised by, among others, the Minister of Environment and Climate as a solution for the future Norsk Tekstilgjenvinning (Norwegian Textilerecovery). Twelve curious men and women from SIFO, Sirk Norge, Mepex, NTNU, Vesar, IVAR, Revise/NG and RIG took the trip and received answers to the many questions they had about this project.

Before a tour of the open and clean factory premises (no reason to take for granted for those of us who have visited recycling companies further south in Europe), we received a clear introduction to the background of NT and the plans for the future. – As of now we sort 1 to 5 tons a day, explained Pål Erik, who started in 2021 – after many years on the supplier side with Healthworkers hospital clothing. Thus, it was the health and hotel sectors that he also started with, because these have uniform products that are easier to work with than textiles from private households.

But what primarily distinguishes this factory from others we have seen, or heard about, is that the fiber to fiber recycling is neither mechanical nor chemical, in the classical sense; it is a ‘defibration’, a more advanced form for mechanical recycling. – I had to come up with a completely new word, explains Pål Erik. The machine, which ‘opens up’ the materials and fibers, is rather unique; the founder found it in Italy and believes it is one of a kind, at least on this scale. Each material that goes into the process, whether it is wool, cotton, polyester or polycotton – requires fine-tuning to obtain fibers that are long enough that they can be carded and spun into new thread and only a small proportion end up being downcycled. Through windows on the machine, we get to see the entire process in practice. Above us, an ingenious humidity system pumps out water vapor, while at the same time the textile dust is sucked out of the air. Should a fire occur, everything stops automatically and is isolated.

Ambitious goals

The latter is incredibly important, because the dust is highly flammable, and when some of us visited a downcycling plant in Poland, we learned – in the smell of foul-smelling anti-mold chemicals – that spontaneous combustion of the textile dust occurred at irregular intervals. That’s just how it was.

During 2025, Pål Erik believes that the plant will have a capacity of 5,000 tons, while long-term plans are for 30,000. To achieve this, automation, AI training and robots are part of the future. In the meantime, the world’s most advanced camera technology is used to identify the fiber content of reference textiles in all mixing ratios. It is the ‘clean’ textiles that can be recycled and defibrated into new thread today, even though they have also experimented with the ‘worst possible mixtures’. – Wool is probably the first thing we will achieve profitability for, he says, showing off the raw material that Gudbrandsdalens Uldvarefabrik will spin from the factory’s own offcuts that previously went to incineration. – We are also working on a project with Aclima, with merino wool.

Economic sustainability and social responsibility are the two most important pillars for NT, sustainability in a more conventional sense he would rather not use about the process, even though it uses both minimal electricity and water – and since they sort by color – no hazardous chemicals. – We have also chosen to say ‘no’ to products from Shein and Temu in our production line, because we do not know enough about the chemicals they use. So, we take these products out.

Pål Erik shows off the nurse’s uniform where over 50 percent is recycled fiber. Photo Jens Måge.

They collaborate with many, including Kirkens Bymisjon and Fretex, who send them what is too damaged to reuse. If they still find things that should be reused rather than shredded, Tise and Finn are the recipients. While we are standing there, a home-knitted polar bear sweater from the 1980s appears. – It is probably acrylic, since it has not been taken out, Pål Erik speculates. We are standing by the machine that takes pictures of all the garments with a hyperspectral “camera”, and based on what it registers and is set to identify, blows the garments out for further processing – today’s do was to sort into cotton, viscose and polyester with a minimum of 95% of this fiber content.

-They must be as clean as possible, in terms of fiber content and of course laundered. We cannot use wet or dirty textiles, and unfortunately the collection towers get damp when they are outdoors. There must be better solutions. For example, collection inside shopping malls. We have also found a solution for 50-50 cotton and polyester.

Because he has hired a Ukrainian textile engineer, he gets good support precisely in finding solutions for the fiber qualities; and when the raw materials, threads or fabrics are tested in the company’s lab, they get a report card that others can be green with envy over. – Maybe we will build a spinning mill here too, as it is not necessarily so labor-intensive.

Not that finding employees is a problem, many people want a job here, we understand. And the prospects for the company – which has received a lot of financial support from Innovation Norway, the Norwegian Retail and Environment Fund and the Research Council, totaling 50 million kroner – are that they could become profitable in 2026. Despite having gone from 50 to 5,000 square meters in no time. But then they charge at ‘both ends’, both from those who want to get rid of the textiles and those who buy the recycled fiber: The cotton is sold to Spain, the wool to Norwegian customers and polycotton also has a market, as mentioned. He also showed off hospital uniforms with 52% recycled fiber, which have withstood both washing and use, and which appear both softer and more comfortable than regular uniforms.

Not a goal to have recycled fiber in everything

They are constantly trying out new solutions, but taking one step at a time. He wants to and believes in trying out hemp as a replacement for polyester in a cotton blend. And otherwise says ‘no’, not only to Shein and Temu, but is also clear that the EU’s idea that all textiles should have recycled content is nonsense. – Curtains are fine with recycled fibers, but fine wool t-shirts, that’s really just nonsense, emphasizes Pål Erik, even though he may be undermining his own business model with such a statement.

He also hopes that there are products that could disappear from use or at least not end up as hostages in the circular economy, as they create major problems. When we ask for a wish list of these, which the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation could use more ink to get rid of rather than the current focus on physical strength, repairability and recycled content, Pål Erik lists: – Clothes with printed logos, with electronics and sequins, and sportswear with lots of Spandex. He is also not particularly enthusiastic about thin nylon stockings, thongs and bras with underwire – and believes that they belong in residual waste and should be sent to incineration rather than recycling, which is the opposite of what the official policy currently demands. GoreTex jackets, on the other hand, he believes must first and foremost be used ‘up’, and then must be treated as toxic waste and incinerated separately.

Today’s incineration of these does not take into account PFAS, Pål Erik believes. Thus an intermediate storage of such textiles might be necessary until better solutions are found.

Dutch textile policy envisions consumption reductions and production and imports quotas.

Kinga Zablocka on 17. January 2025

SIFO’s advocacy work is influencing international public policy, step by step.

The Dutch Circular Textile Policy Program for 2025-2030, released in December 2024, includes measures to reduce the volume of raw materials used in textiles, including the reduction of incentives that stimulate consumption (low price, advertising, sales), measures to help consumers to make sustainable choices, and limiting the production and import of textiles. As such, this policy takes a daring step towards acknowledging that overproduction and overconsumption are the key challenges in enabling a sustainable clothing sector. In doing so, it shows a higher level of awareness and ambition of impact than the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles issued in 2022, where these issues are completely ignored.

The work of SIFO has been influential to these developments. Irene Maldini has conducted research on growth in the volumes of clothing circulating in the Netherlands and the associated environmental challenges since 2016 and on the development and impact of the Amsterdam policy initiatives to limit local consumption levels since 2020. This research was conducted in her previous affiliation at AUAS. In late 2024, a continuation of this research was published in the Routledge Handbook of Climate Change and Society, in the context of the CHANGE project and her affiliation at SIFO.

In 2023, she was assigned the task of inspiring and helping local companies to reduce production volumes by the Amsterdam Economic Board and the new Dutch national program for 2025-2030 refers to it, acknowledging that:

It was long thought that the amount of production is determined by demand, in particular the demand to replace a garment. Research shows that this is not true. The production volume is determined by growth objectives of companies and demand is driven by companies, including by the rapid succession of collections. This means that there is a production-driven system. As a result, textile consumption continues to grow, even though most Dutch people already have more than enough clothing at home. It therefore seems a logical step to investigate a production quota as a solution.

The way that this quota will be implemented has not been yet disclosed, but the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure has assigned the consultancy Sufficiency the task to investigate possibilities and implications. SIFO has provided input stemming from all relevant research conducted during recent years on this, including the proposal for a Targeted Producers Responsibility instrument.

In the context of rapidly emerging policy in recent years, we have worked hard to combine our research activities with advocacy work, so that the results of this research are considered and make an impact. It has not been easy, and we have found that scientific knowledge does not have the place it deserves in environmental policy development. But sometimes, we have found a way in, by being in the right place at the right time.

Telling it like it is: Lambasting consumer-facing Higg-based label

tobiasson on 14. January 2025

Ingun Klepp discussing the NCA ruling in Nürnberg.

In a newly published article from Consumption Research Norway SIFO at Oslo Metropolitan University, Who Can Stop the Greenwashing, penned by Ingrid Haugsrud and Ingun Grimstad Klepp, the authors literally lambaste how the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (now Cascale) misused outdated and faulty data for their launch of a Higg (now Worldly) consumer-facing sustainability label.

In a detailed and thorough review of the case brought forward by Naturvernforbundet (Friends of the Earth) in Norway against sportswear actor Norrøna, who used the Higg MSI tool-based labeling scheme to market an organic cotton t-shirt as ‘less thirsty’ than a conventional cotton t-shirt, the authors question who has both the will and the impetus to stop greenwashing.

In the chapter, which is published in Mediating Sustainability in Consumer Society (Routledge 2024), they highlight the specific case in which The Norwegian Consumer Agency (NCA) issued a ruling in 2022: “the Higg MSI data did not constitute sufficient documentation for the claims made by the Norwegian trader in their marketing. The NCA concluded that the trader’s use of Higg MSI data in marketing was misleading, and therefore prohibited under the Norwegian Marketing Control Act”.

How the Higg Index Sustainability Profile Label was presented by Norrøna.

The result of the ruling was massive international media coverage, name-changes for both Higg and SAC, and that the Higg MSI-based label was discontinued. Assistant Director Tonje H. Drevland was responsible for the case on behalf of the NCA and is therefore an important part of this case. In addition to ruling that “Higg MSI data in marketing [is] misleading, and therefore prohibited under the Norwegian Marketing Control Act, which is based on the EU Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD). This conclusion could be seen as a warning to other traders operating in the EU/EEA area, as the NCA found that the use of Higg MSI data in marketing towards consumers in general could easily be misleading.”

The NCA has for a long time provided general guidance on the use of environmental claims in marketing. As a result of the ruling, the SAC (Sustainable Apparel Coalition) asked for more specific guidance. This resulted in “GUIDANCE TO THE SUSTAINABLE APPAREL COALITION ENVIRONMENTAL CLAIMS IN MARKETING TOWARDS CONSUMERS BASED ON THE HIGG MSI” – written in collaboration with the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (the ACM).

Brad Boren (Norrøna) and Tonje Drevland (NCA) discussing the ruling.

The ruling was presented in letters, on webpages, in the aforementioned guidance, in lectures, and in the SAC’s annual conference for the textile industry. Here, Drevland’s message is particularly clear: “I want H&M, Inditex, all large players to take a step back and realize that the steps they are taking internally may feel [like a great cost] to them but remember to look at it from the other side, from the environmental perspective.” She also stressed that “wrong information is worse than no information“.

Which, of course, is counter to the argument used by SAC (Cascale), who have repeatedly claimed that lack of perfection should not come in the way of using the Higg data, nor hinder it from being fed into the Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules data-base.

Ingun Grimstad Klepp explaining the process that is also described in the recent publication.

The critique from the NCA on the use of the Higg MSI or rather the Higg Index Sustainability Profile is as follows:

  • Global averages are not product-specific.
  • The LCA data that backs the global averages and the Higg MSI is outdated.
  • In addition, the LCAs underpinning the claims were not intended for the comparisons that were made.

More consequences followed: The NCA sent a warning to the Swedish fast fashion actor H&M, in case they considered using the Higg Index Sustainability Profile in marketing in Norway, as well as a letter to the SAC (Cascale) telling them to inform all their members about the ruling, and what consequences similar claims on the market in Norway could trigger. In addition, they informed other consumer authorities in the EU/EEA about the decision and issued a general warning to “other traders operating in the EU/EEA area”. Furthermore, NCA started a coordinated action from the Consumer Protection Cooperation Network (CPC), coordinated by the European Commission and led by four consumer protection authorities from Germany, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden against Zalando. According to a press release from the EU from February 2024, Zalando removed all their misleading environmental claims from their website. Thus, a large international player was forced to follow “the ruling”.

The SAC issued a response to the NCA ruling, stating that they will launch a third-party expert review of the Higg MSI and collaborate with the NCA on how to present information to consumers, and in 2023 KPMG did publish a report, but this did not answer the main question whether the data was suited for consumer-facing information or not. They wrote that this would depend on how PEF developed. The NCA’s strong criticism of the Higg Index Sustainability Profile was particularly serious as the SAC and their work with the Higg have been central to the development in the early stages of the EU’s planned anti-greenwashing weapon, PEF. Seeing the ruling and PEF (and the data underpinning PEF) in coherence is a discussion theme – which the EU Commission has tried to avoid – repeatedly dodging the “bullet” and insisting that they are not at all related.

The SAC (Cascale) is also a member of the Policy Hub. Prior Chair of the Policy Hub Baptiste Carriere-Pradal has been the Chair of the Technical Secretariat of the Apparel EU Product Environmental Footprint. The secretariat voting members are dominated by the industry, and the SAC members have a majority of the vote, which they pay a substantial sum to have. As already mentioned, the data and the studies that underpin the Higg MSI are to a large extent the same data and studies that are being used in the development of the PEFCR.

Discussing the ruling during the IWTO Roundtable in Nürnberg in 2022.

The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre has been tasked with verifying the scientific robustness of the database. Obtaining new Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) suitable for comparison is both challenging and expensive, and even more difficult if global averages cannot be used, which is the mainstay of the LCA-based Higg MSI. Another problem is that parts of the tool are behind a paywall and therefore unavailable to consumers and for documentation, further hindering a democratic process. When the complaint was filed by Friends of the Earth Norway, they chose to pursue the case because the complaint referred to scientific papers that questioned the Higg MSI data.

This gave research and critical journalism an important role in unpacking the issue. Most notable was the work of Veronica Bates Kassatly, an independent analyst and consultant who has authored several white papers with Dorothée Baumann-Pauly: The Great Green Washing Machine: Part 1 and more importantly Part 2) The Use and Misuse of Sustainability Metrics in Fashion. Worth mentioning is also her significant contributions related to cotton and other fibres, and how the incorrect claims and misuse of LCA data abound. The articles can be found here.

Both academic research and critical journalism have pointed out serious weaknesses in the Higg MSI in general, and the claims surrounding cotton in particular. It is also evident that research and critical journalism played a role in documenting the controversies and providing the necessary information to the consumer authorities.

The NCA’s ruling stated that the Higg Index Sustainability Profile was greenwashing if the use of the scheme was consumer-facing. In contrast, their authority had no means to say anything about the tool as such. It can still be used business to business (B2B). The same information used B2B could be particularly harmful because it is to a greater extent used as a basis for decisions – which in turn affects the consumers’ options and the downstream producers. It is also possible that the power of consumer authorities, and especially the NCA, shown in the ruling, is easily pulverized if the communicator of the unreliable information is no longer the company itself, or industry organizations such as the SAC (Cascale), but authorities such as the EU, through tools like the PEF.

The article stresses that this perspective is important, and also resulted in a lot of attention in the international press in the aftermath of the ruling. Articles with headlines like “EU PEF tool’s regulations in question now after Higg’s MSI” stating that “A group of 12 organisations have expressed their concerns over the EU Commission’s plans to use Product Environment Footprint category rules (PEF-CR) ‘as a standalone method’ for communicating green claims in apparel and footwear” or “After Higg Came Under Fire for Greenwashing, Now This One’s in the Hot Seat, Too”. PEF might, in other words, just as well be a powerful greenwashing tool – if the knowledge it is based on is insufficiently documented, outdated, contested, or irrelevant, to mention some of the criticisms against the Higg MSI.

The SAC (Cascale) themselves, have called for speeding up the PEF process, and one can wonder why.

It will become more difficult to stop greenwashing based on a lack of documentation if this is hidden in the PEF system. Finding the numbers behind the score will demand a lot of detective work from consumers and others. It will perhaps become even more important to establish what is essential and relevant information for consumers.

Tonje Drevland discussing the consequences of the ruling during an OECD conference.

“Mediating Sustainability in the Consumer Society”, edited by Astrid Skjerven, Lisbeth Løvbak Berg, Liv Merete Nielsen and Dagny Stuedahl, will be launched in Oslo January 29th 2025, 4 PM. More info here.

The article Who Can Stop the Greenwashing, can be accessed here (routledge.com).

Clothing Research’s Lisbeth Løvbak Berg, who is co-editor, also has written the last article in the book: Indigenous approaches to mediation of the climate and nature emergency: a conversation with Vanessa Andreotti. 

Access the book here (routledge.com).

Hello from Melbourne!

Kinga Zablocka on 14. January 2025

In September 2024, we left autumnal Oslo behind to embark on a research exchange at the University of Melbourne with the Critical Fashion Studies research collective. This group, led by Professor Natalya Lusty and Dr. Harriette Richards, brings together fashion scholars, practitioners, and industry members to advance research on sustainability, ethics, and innovation in fashion.

During our stay, we had the privilege of attending several inspiring events. In October, we participated in an Ethical Fashion Walking Tour, facilitated by Ethical Clothing Australia as part of Melbourne Fashion Week. The tour took us around the suburb Fitzroy, where we visited local fashion businesses, including Denim Smith, Remuse Designs, and The Social Studio – all ethically accredited.

Among these, we were particularly impressed by Remuse, which works with recycled materials and natural, low-impact dyes. Inspired by their designs, we attended a highly anticipated fashion show later that week, where Remuse was featured. The show was an incredible experience, blending art and fashion in memorable performances.

In the week before Christmas, we were invited by Dr. Alice Payne and Dr. Yassie Smith to give a talk at the RMIT School of Fashion and Textiles for the staff. During the session, we shared insights and findings from our projects and received valuable comments and questions following our presentations. This opportunity allowed us to meet several colleagues who have worked with similar theoretical and methodological perspectives, fostering important connections for potential future collaborations.

The second week of January brought the highlight of our exchange: the Critical Fashion Studies Symposium at RMIT. The symposium focused on rethinking clothing and textile practices and consisted of three panels that explored key themes within sustainable fashion research. Anna participated in the first panel, which delved into circularity and disposal. She presented findings from her project on disposal practices and garment care, with a specific focus on participants’ expressions of care, both towards other people and their clothes. The following panel discussion touched on the challenges facing second-hand clothing markets in Australia. This session provided fascinating insights into how circularity is approached within the local context. The audience expressed interest in and prior knowledge of SIFO’s clothing research and inquired about funding opportunities in Norway.

The second panel explored wardrobe stories, and the personal relationships people have with their clothing. Vilde shared findings from her research on interviews with couples, emphasizing how gender dynamics play a significant role in shaping clothing consumption. She also mentioned some findings from our scoping review of wardrobe studies and encouraged those in the audience that have worked with wardrobe studies to contribute to the wardrobe studies blog on the website. The panel highlighted how wardrobe studies can capture everyday practices that support sustainability and included findings from an intriguing wardrobe study with individuals who are blind and therefore rely on sensory engagement with their clothing.

The final panel examined remaking and repair as innovative pathways to sustainability. Topics included remake collaboration processes, community repair in Melbourne, fashion-based social enterprises, and local fashion ecologies. The discussion emphasized the need for systemic changes to promote circularity, transparency, and place-based regenerative practices in the fashion industry.

Anna returned to Oslo after the symposium while Vilde still has some travelling to look forward to and will be returning later in February. Our exchange has been an incredible journey of learning and collaboration, filled with inspiration and new perspectives on fashion, design and sustainability.

– Vilde & Anna

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.

Amazing international win!

tobiasson on 7. December 2024

Bunad in use at a wedding

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.

On the other hand, the bunad has also had an important role in keeping the Norwegian textile industry alive.

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!

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.

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.