News Archives - Page 2 of 6 - Clothing research

Klippe, klippe, klippe: A changing discussion of gender

tobiasson on 16. October 2023

Two professors (women) making the "cutting" sign with their fingers.

Part of the CHANGE team recently travelled to the mountains to have a meeting to discuss work in progress. A recurring theme was the Norwegian fairy tale about “Kjerringa mot strømmen” (The hag against the current). The one who even when being drowned by her husband after her insistence that the crop is cut with scissors not his preferred scythe, insists “klippe, klippe, klippe” (cut with scissors).

The group, during the discussion, both agreed about many things, and came up with new thoughts during the meeting, about men and women’s wardrobes and the necessity to discuss gender in the context of sustainability. There is little in our field of study that is not gendered, it concerns the clothes themselves, how they are used, who those of us who are actually studying clothes are and who our informants are. Nevertheless, gender is rarely an important part or even a discussion point in clothing and sustainability research. We talked about why this is so, and what we can do to change this.

In the study of clothing, gender is not the only thing missing, however, gender will always play a role, because we have different bodies and different life stories. Because clothing is physical, they will always relate to the gender in some way. We also discussed how gender is brought in to other areas, such as health, related also to smoking and drinking, and how our bodies tolerate things differently related to gender.

If we acknowledge that gender is a social construct, we still have to deal with bodies as physical. Because both of these conditions are complex and related, this presents additional challenges.

In studies and especially comparisons of men’s and women’s clothing, it is easy to describe the differences, and thus reinforce the stereotypes. We discussed how the stereotypes can removed or challenged, and thus not reinforced. We also revisited Thorstein Veblen’s theories about clothing, which can contribute to a better understanding of systems and power.

We talked briefly about what else is “missing” in the discourse around clothing and sustainability, including the class perspective.

All in all, this discussion pointed to a direction that is important to explore when it comes to different “black holes” or blind spots, that if left un-touched, may end up hampering rather than helping us move forward.

In the fairytale, the women was drowned sticking her hand up above the water making the “clipping” sign with her fingers. She would not give in. Afterwards they could not find her before someone suggested to search for her upstream. And yes, there she was. Kate added to this, that she always thinks it is good idea to look in the least expected direction. We need to remind each other about the limitations of the “obvious”.

The Plastic Elephant tramples into the international conference room

tobiasson on 6. October 2023

Presenting the Plastic Elephant report on stage in Biella.

The opening session at the Natural Fiber Connect conference in Biella, Italy at the very end of September, put the increasingly frequently mentioned elephant in the room center stage, namely overproduction and the plasticization that characterizes the textile industry.

The fact that the Italian Minister of the Environment opened the conference with a video greeting testifies to how important the textile industry is to the Italians, and not least how seriously they take the environmental problems that the same industry stands for. But in contrast to the industry as a whole, they have a great understanding that production, and particularly of synthetic materials, must be reduced considerably – which means more expensive textiles and more focus on natural fibres. This is music to the ears of the Italian industry, but also to natural fiber representatives who had gathered in Biella: cashmere, alpaca, wool, cotton and silk producers from farm level up to spinning mills, weaving mills and other industries.

Weighting the environmental burden

The key note speech was given by Veronica Bates-Kassatly. In contrast to Make The Label Count’s approach, which is currently persistently arguing that more parameters must be included in EU’s PEFCR, such as biodegradability, microplastics and renewability; Bates-Kassatly had the opposite approach. She believes that greenhouse gas emissions must be weighted much more (i.e. CO2 emissions in her argument), and that many of the 16 parameters that the EU’s Joint Research Center has decided should be included should be cut out or weighted much less. This includes water use and land use, two things which turns out to be unfortunate for natural fibres, but where the differences are large on a global basis so that average figures make very little sense. For example, a Norwegian sheep on open pasture will use huge areas of land to produce a few kilograms of wool, and this counts negatively.

Stand to increase plastics rather than decrease

A recent report from SIFO, the Plastic Elephant, followed Bates-Kassatly’s key note and the silk industry’s strong criticism of the data base for Higg and PEF (silk comes out as the worst fibre). The main message in the SIFO report is that a review of policy instruments, strategies from the industry and NGOs shows that to a very small extent they consider what can be done to reduce the volumes and not least to reduce the large increase over the last 40 years in synthetic materials and fast fashion. When the EU’s Textile Strategy wants to make “fast fashion out of fashion”, none of the tools in the toolbox are sufficient and, if anything, they will increase plasticisation. The report explains why, and the audience at the conference nodded their heads tellingly when the reasoning was explained.

The fact that the audience laughed out loud and applauded when the actual background for the Plastic Elephant report was presented at the start was, of course, liberating. This meant taking the audience back to the Copenhagen Fashion Summit in 2017, where the first Pulse report postulated that consumers must be persuaded to prefer synthetics to cotton; and where EcoAge’s Livia Firth asked H&M’s Helena Helmersson: “Why do you have to produce so much and constantly push new collections on consumers?” Helmersson replied that they are only doing what consumers want, to which Firth replied: “My children want sugar every single day, but do I give it to them? No.” The laughter resounded and a huge applause followed.

“Sugar” became the word of the day

The rest of the day, “sugar” was the word repeated over again, as equivalent with unhealthy consumption, and related to synthetics. Which means deplastification – also in the textile sector – may finally be on the agenda. To watch the whole morning session, go to this LinkedIn link. The Plastic Elephant report is easy to find here.

Thriving without growth

ingridha on 5. October 2023

The Amsterdam Economic Board launches a learning journey for clothing companies to reduce their production volumes.

Amsterdam has been a pioneer in recognizing the limits of growth and the need to reduce consumption levels in policy. In 2020, Amsterdam was the first city in the world to commit to the principles of the Doughnut Economy framework, including the notion of sufficiency in consumption volumes. Other cities have followed, such as Brussels, Copenhagen, Berlin, and Cambridge. Although the impact of such strategic decisions on the overall consumption levels of the city is questionable, the fact that local public servants have included a focus on consumption volumes (what really matters to reduce the local impact of the sector) are remarkable.

On 27^th September, in the context of the kickoff of the Amsterdam Economic Board’s program (a commission by the national Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management), our OsloMet colleague Irene Maldini introduced the importance of setting production reduction targets to local companies in her talk “Taking sustainability to the next level: how and why to reduce production and consumption volumes in the clothing sector.” Building her argument on the lack of evidence of the efficacy of well-known strategies in reducing production volumes (such as product lifetime extension, reuse, and shared use), Irene called the audience to overcome fear of economic decline to implement measures that can help confronting overproduction and overconsumption in the sector.

Companies participating in the program are committing to reduce their own production by 5%, a target set by the Amsterdam Economic Board. Participants were left with a few questions to reflect on, such as: Where to start? How will the board, staff, and clients react? Who are the right partners, such as suppliers and retailers, to implement a sufficiency-based strategy? How to establish KPIs for production reductions?

The learning journey is only at the start, during the next three months participants will read relevant texts, carry out given activities at the company, and share their progress and struggle in four sessions. The number of companies engaged is limited. However, the fact that this program is a commission of a national government to promote a post growth mentality among local businesses is groundbreaking. In keeping a focus on production volumes reductions and setting a quantitative target in line with scientists’ advice, the Amsterdam Economic Board has dared to do what the European Commission has consistently avoided in the development of the EU Sustainable and Circular Textiles Strategy: to openly discuss production volumes, the elephant in the room, and further starting to show the elephant its way out.

EU wants data on textile waste, and we have the answer

tobiasson on 13. September 2023

Text by Tone Skårdal Tobiasson

The proposal for the Waste Framework Directive, which is currently being read and analyzed by a myriad of companies, NGOs, researchers, policy-makers and interested citizens throughout Europe, handles two major consumer ‘goods’: Textiles and food. We are mainly concerned with the former, however, we have found that food offers us two good guiding principles.

The first one is to eat up what is on your plate. The second is waste audits as a means to gain meaningful knowledge on what gets “eaten up” and what doesn’t. In three separate documents, we ask the EU to heed these two guiding principles and apply them to apparel and other textiles.

One of the documents is our feedback on the textile part of the Waste Framework Directive (read the document here), where the authors have concrete recommendations for ensuring that the policy measures in the WFD can actually contribute to the EU’s ambition of putting fast fashion out of fashion. Currently, the Duration of Service is what is lacking in the available data (how long apparel has been in use and to what level the apparel and textile waste is ‘used up’ ), but even if the background document (#4) states “There is currently no sound method of estimating textile waste (collected and discarded in mixed municipal waste)”, this is just not true. And the two other papers elaborate on exactly this point. Waste audits/waste composition studies – which are very much used when gaining data on food waste – and wardrobe studies – are well-developed methods.

The document Status for developing methods for using waste as a resource for knowledge about the use phase of clothing (read the document here), offers an overview of exactly the current status for these methods, while the document USED, BUT NOT USED UP: Using textile waste to inform textile rating schemes (read the document here) explores how the data-collection methodology using waste audits can underpin several policy measures, such as the Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules, Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), Labelling and Digital Product Passport (DPP), the Green claims directive, as well as EPR and the WFD. We have called the ongoing waste audit method for Targeted Producer Responsibility (TPR), as we originally saw it as a more effective means for levelling a EPR fee, using the Duration of Service as the measuring stick. However, we also now have realized that taking the waste as the point of departure, has many other ramifications that can be leveraged.

The cut-off point for feedback to the WFD keeps being postponed, but we encourage everyone to respond, as a functioning EPR scheme which actually takes the waste hierarchy seriously, can be reality, if we use waste audits as the basis for eco-modulating the fee. What we urgently need is for companies to add the date of production or when the product goes to market to the brand label. Then we can look both upstream, and downstream, from the time apparel and other textiles enter the different waste streams.

The plastic elephant in the room: Who dares to talk about it?

tobiasson on 4. September 2023

In the Consumption Research Norway SIFO report The plastic elephant: Overproduction and synthetic fibers in sustainable textile strategies we examine national, international and corporate strategies for sustainable textiles to understand whether, and if so, how they include the problem of increased production volumes based on synthetic materials that can be referred to as the ‘plastic elephant in the room’.

”It’s time to talk about the elephant in the room.” This is a quote from the 2014 GFA Fashion Summit in Copenhagen, when Livia Firth, founder of the consultancy EcoAge and the Green Carpet Challenge, was on a panel with H&M. She challenged the growth issue where “fast fashion brands justify growth by saying that it is the consumers who demand the wide selection and diversity of fashion styles today”. Firth responded to this claim made by H&M’s Helena Helmersson by saying that her children want candy all the time but that does not mean they should have it, and that as a parent she has “a responsibility in addressing this want”.

In order to find out whether different strategies take seriously the connection between overproduction and the enormous growth in the consumption of clothing and textiles, and the increase in the use of synthetic materials, we asked four questions to the strategies. First, we looked at whether the strategies discuss growth in production volumes and possible measures to stop this growth. Second, we examined whether they address the plastification of textiles. By plastification, we mean the increasing share of plastic fibres used for textile production. Third, we exmined whether they discuss the raw material for plastics, and fourth, plastic waste. The results show that none of these questions that can reduce the environmental impacts of clothing production are given a central role in the strategies. There were three types of strategies that were examined: policy, industry and NGOs’ sustainability strategies.

Important findings

The most interesting findings are related to the reduction of the use of synthetic fibres – the plastification. This is the question that receives the overall lowest scores: none of the strategies present clear, direct measures to halt plastification, though some of the public policymakers indirectly include such a goal, through goals of substituting fossil raw materials in the production with other materials, including bioplastics. Without stating how this tendency is to be reversed, the strategies raise concerns over the increasing volumes of fossil raw materials used in textile production. It is also suggested that synthetic fibres have important qualities that are needed and the strategy of substituting virgin plastics with recycled plastics is particularly present in the strategies of the industry stakeholders.

The Plastic Elephant is a part of the project Wasted Textiles, the goal of which is precisely to reduce the use of synthetic textiles and the amount that goes to waste. It is situated right at the core of the project’s goal and of course, the project is also the reason why our elephant is synthetic textiles (i.e., plastic). At the same time, we are building on work from three other ongoing projects at Consumption Research Norway (SIFO): CHANGE – about quantity, LASTING – about lifetime and REDUCE – about plastics in everyday life; and we thank our good colleagues from all the three projects for fruitful conversations as well as heated debates. We thank in particular Kirsi Laitala, Marie Hebrok, Harald Throne-Holst, Irene Maldini, Kate Fletcher and Kerli Kant Hvass for their thorough reading of the report and constructive comments.

The full report can be downloaded here.

Productive project publishes again

tobiasson on 1. September 2023

The researchers studying the Polish mountain wool.

The scientific article Sound Absorption of Tufted Carpets Produced from Coarse Wool of Mountain Sheep has been published in Journal of Natural Fibers. The article is co-authored by Jan Broda, Katarzyna Kobiela-Mendrek, Marcin Bączek, Monika Rom and Ingvild Espelien, and is an important contribution to the study of wool’s properties.

As part of the ongoing research in the WOOLUME project, looking at good utilization of coarse Polish mountain wool, is an important exploration. Tufting is a technique with cut and loop piles and to which degree this technique used on coarse wool can contribute to sound absorbing properties is interesting to study.

Some tufting history

Wool from Polish mountain sheep is coarse, highly differentiated both in thickness and length and contains a significant content of medullated fibers and kemp. Despite its poor characteristics, the wool can be used for the production of rag yarns fit for pile carpets with tufting technique. The carpets possess acceptable sound absorbing capacity comparable to other similar products obtained from other wool types, which is dependent on both pile types and their parameters.

The hand tufting technique was invented at the end of the nineteenth century in Dalton (Georgia, USA) where it was first applied for handicraft production of bedspreads, mats, and bathrobes. The technique involves stitching the yarn into the backing fabric to create a loop, cut, or mixed piles. Loop piles are formed when the yarn inserted is caught by loopers and pulled through the backing to a set length. Cut piles are formed by cutting the piles at their maximum length, with blades operating in tandem with the loopers. In the 1930s, a modified single-needle commercial sewing machine was adopted for tufting. The machine enabled tufting of thick yarn into muslin without tearing the fabric and was coupled with a knife to cut the loops.

Further development

In the next few years, tufting machines with four, then eight, twenty-four, or more needles enabling the formation of parallel rows were constructed. Machines were introduced to the industrial practice, which soon resulted in the rapid growth of the mechanized tufting industry. After the second world war, in the 1950s, tufting machines were getting more and more common and were equipped with several hundred needles to stitch hundreds of pile yarn rows. In the next years, tufting dominated carpet manufacturing. It is estimated that nowadays, tufting is a common technique widely used for the production of 90% of the carpets available in the market. The introduction of the tufting technique on a large scale coincided with the development of new synthetic fibers. Application of these fibers significantly accelerated the growth of carpet production. The new yarns, continuous filament nylon yarns in particular, provided good quality and high durability of carpets at a relatively low price, out-performing wool as the raw-material with a much cheaper price point.

Wool carpets used as floor coverings and interior decorations offer additional considerable advantages in terms of thermal insulation and heat balance in buildings. Moreover, such carpets are highly effective in controlling indoor noise and reducing the reverberation of sound. Carpets are some of the most versatile sound-absorbing materials which absorb both airwave sounds and reduce surface noise generation. Additionally, carpets reduce the impact of sound transmission between stories in multi-storied buildings.

Detailed characterization

In our previous studies, the acoustic performance of felt and fabrics manufactured from Polish mountain sheep wool was analyzed. The investigations showed that the wool of mountain sheep, which is often disregarded and treated as a waste product of sheep husbandry, is a valuable raw material that can be used to produce carpets and panels with good sound-absorbing properties. The paper presents the results of further studies on the utilization of coarse wool obtained from mountain sheep to produce rag yarns suitable for the production of pile carpets with the tufting technique. During this investigation, the raw wool and yarns were characterized in detail, and the possibility of using yarns in the tufting technique was explored. Then, the sound absorption capacity and transmission loss of the obtained materials in relation to the type of piles, pile height, and density were analyzed.

Conclusion: Apart from their decorative function, carpets produced from Polish mountain sheep wool with the tufting technique can serve as valuable sound absorbing material to lessen noise, reduce reverberation, and improve the acoustic comfort of the room.

Access to the full article is provided in this link.

This research was funded by the Norway Grant titled “Polish sheep wool for improved resource utilisation and value creation.” NOR/POLNOR/WOOLUME/0007/2019

Garbage talk: Easily outdated, but difficult to date

lisbethl on 15. August 2023

Text by Tone Skårdal Tobiasson

The results from the Wasted Textiles pilot study, executed by four Master-students Camilla Sunde (UiO), Eva Hovda (NTNU), Siri Vestengen (NTNU) and Saeid Sheikhi (Høyskolen Kristiania) has now been published. Avfall Norge and their summer program REdu, were able to get the pilot financed by The Norwegian Retail Environmental Fund, and the results from the pilot where the four students tested out a system for picking analysis that captures vital information on the textiles that mainly had status as garbage is presented in the report.

The analysis conducted in Slemmestad Mepex-center offers valuable insights into the current status of discarded textiles in Norway. The “TPR” (named for the Targeted Producer Responsibility idea) picking analysis results provide us with information regarding the composition of fibres, garment age, country of production, and brand details of the discarded textiles. This data was taken from the care labels on the products. Over a period of 13 days, the team successfully managed to analyze a total of 3024 items using the TPR picking analysis method that they fine-tuned based on a combination of wardrobe studies and classic waste picking analysis.

Picking analyzes are used for other product groups to say something about use. In food, this form of analysis is used to monitor how much edible food is thrown away from private households (see e.g., this study (miljodirektoratet.no)) and to monitor and reduce food waste from institutions. The textiles analysed in the report originated from various waste streams: Mepex’s “Klesbyttedag” (clothing swap day), TRV (Trondheim city pilot project on collecting textiles) and residual waste. Residual waste is the hardest to work with because of smell and humidity making it difficult to weigh the items. In the report, the TRV waste is the largest and most important, representing 91.4 % of the material. Textiles from TRV-pilot are supposed to be damaged textiles. Residents of the pilot area in Trondheim were given instructions and special bags for damaged textiles, clothing and shoes. Residents are encouraged to deliver usable textiles to collection boxes already located in the area and to put the bag with destroyed textiles outside for collection on a fixed day, every four weeks. The interns photographed all the items, gave each textile item a number, and registered information on if the brand could be identified if the care label was intact if there was a year of production or when the product entered the market anywhere on the textile, country of origin, fibre-composition, what state of ‘used up-ness’ the items were in, the weight, etc.

The findings in the REdu project, are based on a small sample, 3024 items all in all. 2564 of 3024 items (the total registered) had the brand present either on the label or a logo visible. 708 distinct brands were identified, but a few dominated, H&M being in the lead, followed by Cubus, Lindex and KappAhl. Out of the 3025 analysed textiles only 95 items had the year of production on their care labels, 2905 did not include this information. Of these clothing pieces 14 of them were from NameIt (a Danish children’s brand), 7 from Vero Moda, 7 from Selected – all three Bestseller brands, and 6 of them were from Bik Bok. For the remaining individual brands, 61 items were with a production year. Some brands have labels with codes that may or may not contain this information, that they would need to explain. Some brands said they are willing to help with this information.

The progress in the TPR picking analysis time efficiency showcases the potential for applying picking analysis and the time it might require. In the TPR approach, they utilised several input parameters and managed to analyse an average of 234 items per day, equivalent to around 79 kg. On the other hand, the “fast TPR method” employed fewer input parameters while still capturing details for each item. With this approach, the average number of items examined within a 30-minute span is 29, equal to 7.6 kg per person. The time used to analyze was affected by the different textiles analysed, whereas multilayer and complicated multi-fibre items were more time-consuming.

In assessing the potential of machine learning in textile waste management, the results are promising, but not without challenges. The initial model focusing on textile type classification achieved significant accuracy, with an accuracy of 82.25 %, emphasizing the practicality of using automation for sorting textiles. However, the usability classification model highlighted the need for comprehensive and quality data inputs to predict an item’s reuse potential. While machine learning presents great promise in enhancing sorting efficiency, determining reusability, and promoting fibre-to-fibre recycling, its successful deployment hinges on several factors. These include the expansion and quality improvement of datasets, the integration of advanced sensing technologies, and a broader assessment of environmental, economic, and social impacts. Ethical considerations are paramount, especially in ensuring that machine learning models operate effectively and ethically. By partnering with Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) schemes, feedback loops between producers and waste management can be optimized.

The data gathered from the examined items highlights the possibility of reusing materials in the textile sector that the consumers themselves deem as garbage. Assessing the level of wear and tear in clothing was relatively easy, factors like pilling, stains, discolouration, damaged zippers, missing buttons, holes, and general signs of use are easy to spot and register. A majority of the items were in a good usability state, where 42% of the textiles scored a condition of 4 (5 being the highest score indicating mint condition, while 1 is not at all reusable), suggesting that the discarded textiles were not “used up”. Also, 21 items were found with their price tags still attached. While some items displayed minor damages, many of these can be fixed effortlessly at home, pointing towards the value of imparting basic repair skills to consumers. Notably, 17.66% of items had a maximum usability score of 5, indicating a considerable number of nearly new items being discarded. We will remind the reader there that these were supposed to be worn out or «broken» items, as fully usable textiles were supposed to be donated in the donation boxes.

The data obtained from this analysis holds significant importance in comprehending the possibilities of automated sorting, material reuse, and recycling. It provides a foundation for introducing strategic methods like extended producer responsibility (EPR) and policies focused on waste prevention. Hopefully, the TPR picking analysis can be used to assess eco-modulated environmental fees in an EPR scheme, aiming to ultimately decrease excessive textile production in the fast fashion sector. In 2022, 105 913 tonnes of new textiles which are equivalent to 19.3 kg per capita, were put on the Norwegian market, so future data collection is not in danger of not having materials to study, once textile waste will be collected separately from 2025.

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

PhD Masterclass on Wardrobe Research

tobiasson on 27. June 2023

Pictures of old clothes and textiles in presentation modus.

13th of April this year an online PhD masterclass was conducted within the scope of the CHANGE work package 5. The masterclass was online and involved the currently eight PhD students working with the wardrobe method or closely related methods and had the purpose of facilitating exchange of shared methodological implications, involved issues of interest, and the build-up of research network for young talents.

The 2-hour masterclass was informed by rapid pecha kucha type presentations of ongoing work and pre-formulated questions to facilitators and peers, and the workshop was hosted by Else Skjold who is PI of work package 5 of the CHANGE project. This work package involves, among other things, consolidation of existing wardrobe research and talent recruiting for new young research talent. Below is elaborated how the three themes cross-fertilized and interesting discussion that will hopefully just be the beginning of future work across the CHANGE partners to come. The presentations and discussions involved three selected topics emerging out of the ongoing PhD studies which were:

Wardrobe Practices
Secondary Use
Textile Techniques and Use

Wardrobe Practices

How can we understand the interactions between wearers and garments within the specific site of the wardrobe both at micro- and macro-level? This has always been the core pillar of wardrobe research since it was established in the mid 2000’s, and it was very interesting to see how young scholars pick up on this and formulate new ideas within the scope of their thesis work. A particular strong focus on local dress cultures and its effect on individual wearers were highlighted in this session, that brought about fruitful discussions on situated and contextual dress practices and how they are affected by climatic, cultural, economic and functional parameters.

Secondary Use

How can wardrobe research methods cast a light on the types of mechanisms and value creation that takes place between wearers and their vintage- and secondhand garments? This line of research is an interesting extension of ‘first generation’ wardrobe researchers’ work, in that it investigates what actually happens with garments beyond first use. This way it speaks back to concepts such as design for longevity/circularity and what they entail in the lifespan of garments between generations, body types, dress cultures and shifting ideas of fashion over time. And furthermore, how that informs practices of acquiring and discarding – an issue that has also been central within wardrobe research right from early pioneer studies in the early 1990’s.

Textile Techniques and Use

What types of competences used to be involved in maintaining personal wardrobes historically and how can we learn from this in an era with overproduction and overconsumption? Mending, repair and repurposing are all practices that have been deeply integrated in historical practices of use, as resources were typically scarce and costly – as opposed to now where much knowledge has been lost due to cheap, replaceable products and short use phases. This session looked into wardrobe maintenance practices of embellishment, print or other textile techniques for prolonging the lifespan of clothing, for projecting activist ideas, and generally for informing future practices and aesthetics of scarcity.

The masterclass will be repeated during the fall of 2023.

Reflections from PLATE

ingridha on 23. June 2023

We attended the PLATE-conference in Helsinki with 7 papers, you can read more here.

The PLATE conference has over the years brought together very important profiles and institutions that all work with the concept of design for longevity, the use phase of products, systems and processes around products, and this was also the case in Helsinki. The group of scholars in fashion, clothing and textiles has grown considerably, so it felt very much like a ‘family get-together’ where senior scholars catch up with their respective work, and where aspiring junior scholars get to present their new and fresh ideas on the conference topic.

More Critical

Else Skjold from the Royal Danish Academy of Arts, and one of the work package leaders in CHANGE, has reflected on the more critical and said: “What was evident for this particular conference was how there is a development in the field towards a more systemic approach that involves policy framework, assessment schemes for longevity parameters, such as e.g. the use phase, the building up of ‘eco-systems’ of stakeholders and citizens for better resource efficiency, or educational schemes at particularly design schools.

These kinds of approaches seem to predict the work within the field for the coming years, in the shared understanding that the design of products alone will not affect any change in itself – there needs to be a deeper transformation at both cultural, political, and economic level before long-lasting design can become the new normal.”

Irene Maldini, who is also in CHANGE, agrees with this overall reflection, stating that “the PLATE community is maturing and developing more critical research about product lifetimes. In past editions, research focused mostly on how to apply well-known circular economy strategies. In every edition there are more realistic perspectives about the impact and savings of reuse or repair, critical papers on the impacts of clothing reuse, for instance, were quite common in this edition, and good.”

One of these was “Does Resale Extend the Use Phase of Garments? Exploring Longevity on the Fashion Resale Market”, Presented by Mette Dalgaard Nielsen from The Royal Danish Academy, a paper we look forward to reading and using both in Wasted Textiles and “Se min brukte kjole” projects.

Kerli Kant Hvass, a member of the Wasted Textiles consortium, adds that the strength of the conference is its approach to addressing products from a systemic perspective, where sessions dedicated to products and strategies for their longer life and better design were complemented with policy approaches, consumer interface and engagement strategies, business model innovations and technology advancements, such as Digital Product Passport. One of the highlight sessions was Multi-level Policies for Longer Lifetimes chaired by Jessika Richter and Carl Dalhammer, where for example Michela Puglia from Dyson School of Design Engineering presented Circular Economy Policy Canvas, an interesting mapping on EU policies from the fashion industry perspective. This is very timely research as the EU legislation will have a huge impact on both the products and product systems in the coming years.

Limitations of durability

Irene focused on ongoing work in CHANGE around the limitations of durability and noticed that the conference’s view of consumption as replacement-based is still the norm. Only one of the papers she attended, focused on accumulation, namely the paper “Cutting the life of reusable products short: Understanding overconsumption behavior for refill at home FMCGs”, Presented by Catriola Tassell and Marco Aurisicchio, Imperial College London.

Irene reflects: “The most usual way to refer to the difference between how we expect circular strategies to work, and how they actually work, is to use the concept of rebounds, there were several papers on rebounds, and I am looking forward to reading them all.” In the study “Backfire risk in decarbonization potential of 10 circular economy strategies: A meta-analysis of LCA studies on Product Service Systems”, Ryu Koide (University of Tokyo) and colleagues found that 64 % LCAs assume that any “circular offering” displaces “linear products” in a one-to-one basis without even discussing it, a further 17 % assume a displacement rate without empirical basis, 6 % use secondary data to estimate displacement rates in LCAs and only 13 % of all LCAs for all products, all kinds of offerings, conduct research to estimate an empirically based displacement rate. In short, we really don’t know if new ways of producing and consuming offer any improvements.

Returns

In terms of methods and approach to research, we were all impressed about Rotem Roichman’s work on fashion returns, also presented in Tamar Makov’s keynote speech on product returns. Their findings also reinforce a few points important in ongoing SIFO research both in CHANGE and Wasted Textiles, Irene argued: 1) that there is a big difference between demand and production volumes, the second being much bigger, with overproduction driving overconsumption, 2) that no matter how complicated retail, distribution and storage are, production has a far more significant impact, and therefore production volumes deserve much more attention than they get in the field. The paper is “The hidden environmental costs of consumer product returns”, by Tamar Makov, Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business and Management.

Lisbeth Løvbak Berg, from our Clothing Research team, agrees: “It gives further ammunition to our arguments concerning the need for reducing production volumes”. This work was also impressive because trying to map returns is difficult, and because the researchers here used other sources and methods that gave a better picture of the situation. When asked by the audience how the situation with volumes could be improved, Tamar Makov had no suggestions but pointed out that this was not the researchers’ task.

Clothing was a subject of many of the conference papers, and a lot of it was very interesting. Ingun Grimstad Klepp particularly appreciated Ana Neto’s paper, where theories of love are utilised to understand the relations between clothing and people. This perspective shows how important the use phase, and especially a long use phase, is for the development of emotional relationships with clothes. The clothing researchers also participated in a Sustainable Fashion Consumption Network meeting. The network is led by Katja Dayan Vladimirova with the aim of the network of bringing together academic researchers and practitioners working on the issues of fashion consumption in the context of sustainability.

Gender and methods discussion among the PhD students

The PLATE2023 conference included a pre-event for doctoral students working with product lifetimes to discuss commonalities in methods and topics. About 30 doctoral students, including Anna Schytte Sigaard, joined the event which was led by Mikko Jalas who is a professor at the Department for Design at Aalto University. Many of the PhD students working with clothing were using methods similar to wardrobe studies, while also expressing that they were struggling to define their method concretely. They were very happy to hear about the wardrobe studies method and felt that it made sense for them to include a similar framework in their own PhD work. Anna found it very useful to meet and talk to so many doctoral students prior to the conference, especially those with similar academic interests and working on similar topics to mine.
Vilde Haugrønning also enjoyed the discussions and presentations around the topic of gender. Research on fashion and clothing consumption has mostly involved women, which has resulted in much knowledge about women’s clothing consumption patterns but less so about men and the differences between men and women. It is therefore very timely with the study from Stephan Wallaschkowski, who presented on “Gender roles as barriers to sustainable fashion lifetimes: How a deconstruction of norms can extend the use phase of garments”. His research will be an important reference for the CHANGE project and Vilde’s PhD, which aims to look at how social constructs of gender have an influence on the material flow and volume of clothing in wardrobes.

We all returned home with more knowledge and contacts, and will probably also prioritize PLATE in years to come.

Ecodesign position paper: Textiles and footwear

lisbethl on 14. May 2023

Jeans surplus textiles lined up in a factory in Poland.

In a position paper from the Change and Wasted Textile projects, authors Kate Fletcher, Irene Maldini, Ingun Grimstad Klepp, Kirsi Laitala, Jens Måge and Tone Skårdal Tobiasson have addressed the background document from EU’s Joint Research Centre on Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR).

The main theme in the position paper, is that the JRC document Preliminary study on new product priorities lays the basis to increase environmental burdens rather than reduce these. Therefore, in the paper, the authors ask that the work with the ESPR incorporates more empirical understanding about ecodesign, clothing consumption, and textile and fashion design. This in order that the directive will have the effect of reduced environmental burdens (including on climate) and will minimize inappropriate or unintended side effects.

The aim in writing the paper is to support the ESPR process for textiles and footwear in fostering deep and lasting environmental change.

The authors applaud the efforts of the EU in regulating the textile and footwear sector and agree in the priority that has been assigned to clothing and footwear on the bases of high consumption volumes in the EU, potential environmental improvements, and lack of previous regulation. However, it is the view of the authors that the current work with the Ecodesign Directive is based on some assumptions that are not in line with the knowledge that is there, nor is it targeted towards the main and interconnected challenges in clothing and textiles: overproduction and the increasing plasticization of the material content of products.

These two factors are interconnected due to the fact that an increase in production is not possible without the cheap, easily available fossil fuel-based raw material for fibres, materials, dyes and other processing chemicals.

It is therefore questionable whether textiles and footwear should actually be the initial priority for ESPR. Perhaps starting with cement would be better.

ESPR position paper Download