A new research article in Journal of Sustainable Marketing address EU’s Textile Strategy’s blatant avoidance of the volumes issue, and raises the question of why.
In the Journal of Sustainable Marketing, a new article penned by Irene Maldini and Ingun Grimstad Klepp, The EU Textile Strategy: How to Avoid Overproduction andOverconsumption Measures in Environmental Policy, takes the bull by the horn.
The analysis, which was just published, shows how the focus on product durability avoided addressing production volume reductions measures, leading to the exclusion of marketing-oriented regulation (applied to price, frequency of new products put on the market, product placement with influencers, advertising including social media strategy, etc.), which could have actually significant effect in tackling overproduction and overconsumption.
No volume-related questions
Instead, in the open hearings, no questions were asked that were volume-related, only related to durability (with the exception of overconsumption being mentioned once). In the answers, however, volume-related wordings are common – however, in the summary of the feedback, everything about volumes again disappears.
The article is based on the analysis of public documents and interviews with participants of the policy making process, the study unpacks the factors that enabled such a decision, and how it was integrated in the final document.
In sum, the analysis suggests that measures aimed at reducing production and/or consumption volumes were out of the scope of the Textile Strategy already from early stages. The public consultation process was designed, conducted, and analyzed in a way that ensured this exclusion, despite the efforts of some stakeholders and many survey respondents in bringing this issue to the table. The final document does not propose any mechanisms to check and ensure that these have an effect in volume reduction or on the environmental impact for that matter.
Only three peer-reviewed scientific articles
The analysis rather shows that by focusing on product durability, an explicit aim to reduce the volume of clothing was avoided, leaving potentially impactful marketing-related measures out of the scope. The study also uncovers that of the 56 different publications cited to provide the data base for the Textile Strategy, only 3 are peer reviewed scientific articles.
And this is not because there is no knowledge available on textiles and the environment impact from researchers. However, in a marketing journal, we think our perspective from consumption research ploughs new ground.
Thematically, there is a lot of overlap between consumer research and marketing research on consumption. Yet there is little cross-citation and little collaboration. This is probably related to a certain mutual skepticism. Consumer research is about taking the consumer’s position, while marketing is the opposite – at least initially, with the desire to sell something and later change consumers in one way or another. Therefore, it is extra gratifying that we have managed to overcome this barrier by publishing in a marketing journal. With great help from Diego Rinallo, Doctorate in Business Administration & Management, Bocconi University, Milan, Marketing Department. His input has been invaluable.
Irene and Ingun attending EcoAge’s round table on A fair phase-out of fossil fuels from the fashion industry.
The more we have seen the limitations of product perspectives (such as making products “repairable” and the ideas of “educating” consumers to act “sustainably”), the clearer it becomes that marketing must also be included in policy. We need knowledge about how it works and how it can be limited.
The EU, like Norway, is proud of its democracy. In the mapping of why policies develop as they do, and how and by whom decisions are made, it has been surprisingly difficult to gain insight. As the article shows, there was a lack of written documentation about the processes, a reluctance to be interviewed (although no personal questions or questions about opinions were included) and anonymity was ensured.
Sensitive stuff?
How are decisions made and are they really this sensitive to scrutiny? This begs a bigger question perhaps media should ask.
This raises questions not only about why transparency is not valued more highly in democratic countries/regions, but also about the relationship between the research community and policy.
The article sheds light on this relationship directly, and an analysis of what the EU strategy refers to, i.e. what kind of knowledge is used as a basis.
As first author, Irene Maldini reflects: “It has been an adventurous journey to develop my work into this area, and to experience the double role of trying to influence policy building on scientific knowledge (advocacy) and at the same time analyzing the processes of policymaking as an outsider (research). The former has also enabled the latter, because resistance to acknowledge the limits of the planet and economic interests in policy making processes become so clear when you are trying to bring the sufficiency agenda forward.”
The 2025 SCORAI Europe Conference took place at Lund University in Sweden on April 8-10. SCORAI (Sustainable Consumption Research and Action Initiative) is an international network of researchers and practitioners focused on sustainable consumption. This year’s theme, Mainstreaming Sustainable Consumption, brought together a community of thinkers and doers – including several researchers from SIFO.
By Anna Schytte Sigaard
Kirsi Laitala presented a paper from the CHANGE project, co-authored with Irene Maldini, titled “Access to Clothing in a Context of Material Abundance: The Role of Income.” The presentation was part of the session on “Consumption Corridors: Guaranteeing Human Wellbeing Through Upper and Lower Limits to Consumption.” Based on consumer surveys conducted in Norway, Germany, Japan, the UK, and the USA, the study highlighted the need to reduce clothing consumption in affluent societies to achieve social justice and environmental sustainability, noting that clothing consumption continues to grow despite its significant environmental impact
By examining the relationship between household income and clothing consumption, the research reveals that income does not significantly affect the total number of clothing acquisitions, likely due to decreases in the relative price of clothing and access to second-hand clothing. However, higher income does correlate with increased expenditure, purchases of new clothing, and product prices. The findings suggest that future policies aimed at reducing consumption volume in affluent nations should be combined with others that preserve equitable consumption levels in different income groups, involving stakeholders such as clothing companies, resellers, and municipalities.
PhD Research Contributions
SIFO researchers Vilde Haugrønning and Anna Schytte Sigaard also took stage in the “Practice Theory & Sociology” session. Vilde presented her work titled “The feminization of clothing consumption: Exploring drivers behind garment accumulation from a practice-oriented perspective”. Drawing on fieldwork with 15 Norwegian couples, her research allowed for a gendered comparison between couples that take part in many of the same practices and share the everyday life. Findings showed that acquisition is driven by everyday occasions, emphasizing the habitual nature of clothing consumption. In addition, women’s wardrobes were typically larger and growing faster, particularly among younger participants. While many participants, especially women, expressed a desire to reduce their clothing consumption, structural barriers made this difficult. The findings highlight that clothing acquisition is not simply a matter of personal choice or need, but rather a complex process influenced by gendered expectations around appearance, dress, and social practices.
Vilde talked about “The feminization of clothing consumption: Exploring drivers behind garment accumulation from a practice-oriented perspective”.
Anna’s presentation, “Cultural Conventions and the Contradictions of Sustainable Clothing Consumption”, shared early findings from in-depth interviews with 28 Norwegian households about textile disposal. Combining theories of social practice with convention theory, the analysis identified a variety of underlying justification people draw on, ranging from market to civic to environmental reasoning. Interestingly, while many participants referenced sustainability, these justifications often clashed with other cultural norms that still promote acquisition and disposal. The study highlights the tension consumers face when navigating the ideals and realities of sustainable consumption.
Anna’s theme was “Cultural Conventions and the Contradictions of Sustainable Clothing Consumption”.
SIFO researchers Kirsi Laitala, Harald Throne-Holst, and Ingrid Haugsrud were co-authors in two presentations from the Horizon Europe project CARE. Harald presented “Sustainable Interventions in Clothing Consumption and Food Waste: A Systematic Literature Review,” which was part of the “Interventions Toward Circular Consumption” session. Nina Mesiranta from Tampere University presented “Circular Consumption Behaviour Change from a Practice Theoretical Lens: A Systematic Literature Review,” in the session on “Practice Theory & Sociology.” Both presentations were based on a systematic literature review conducted in the CARE project.
The reviews focused on interventions and their effectiveness in shifting consumer behavior toward more circular and sustainable practices, particularly in food waste and clothing consumption. From a theoretical standpoint, our research aimed to assess the extent to which interventions with practice theory or practice theory-based elements have been applied. We found that the most effective interventions combined multiple strategies or adopted a systems approach. The results of these studies are crucial for guiding future efforts to shift consumer behavior and practices toward greater sustainability, as they highlight effective intervention strategies and provide valuable empirical evidence to inform policy development, helping to design more impactful programs and initiatives.
Harald on stage.
SIFO also presented two posters:
“The Impact of Shopping Practices on Reusable Bag Consumption: A Nationally Representative Study from Norway” by Hanna Seglem Tangen and Live Bøyum, and
“Invasive Products – The Case of Disposable Gloves in Norwegian Everyday Life” by Atle Wehn Hegnes, Kirsi Laitala, and Nina Heidenstrøm.
Both poster presentations aimed to reduce plastics consumption by examining single products such as plastic bags and disposable gloves, to better understand the conditions of their use practices.
Other Conference Contributions on Clothing and Textiles
Two dedicated sessions focused on clothing and textile research.
“Sufficiency business models: Fashion sector case studies” highlighted production-side strategies for a more sustainable fashion industry. Topic included reuse and recycling, marketing approaches to reduced consumption, circular strategies among designers, circular fashion business models, and the “Wellbeing Wardrobe” as a tool for just transitions in the industry.
“Fashion and Textiles”, chaired by Lars Fogh Mortensen (European Environmental Agency), opened with findings from the EEA’s latest report “Circularity of the EU textiles value chain in numbers[1]”.
Arjan de Koning (Leiden University) presented findings based on an examination of the post-consumer textile management chain in the Netherlands including a mapping of stakeholders. They found that tension existed between actors in this network when interests became competing. In addition, they discussed the problems with the legal definition of textile waste as “intention to dispose” as this creates heterogenous perspectives on what waste is and is not.
Frida Eggert (Lund University) presented findings from her PhD project about secondhand shopping on digital platforms. She has explored the Swedish platform Sellpy enables different modes of shopping. Findings showed that the platform made slow and fast shopping, two opposed models of secondhand clothes shopping, possible at the same time.
Nicole Berggren (Lund University) explored the repair intention-behavior gap through a case study of Nudie Jeans.
Mariko Takedomi Karlsson (Lund University) initiated her presentation with a reference to the SIFO publication “The Plastic Elephant”[2]. They carried out a policy document analysis on plastic and textiles investigating the coherence across and between relevant European Commission’s strategies anchored in the Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP) as well as subsidiary instruments such as directives and regulations. Tentative results indicated a limited coherence between the plastic and textile strategies regarding problem definition and scope, e.g. plastics are mainly discussed in the textiles strategy in relation to microplastic pollution, but not in relation to how integrated plastics and textiles truly are regarding issues of (eco)toxicological risks, fossil fuel use, and climate impacts of production. In addition, the textile strategy differed from other strategies which largely focused on protecting the consumer (for example from hazardous chemicals) whereas the textile strategy focused on consumer responsibility.
Jason Graham-Nye (University of Technology Sydney) presented their project on sustainable nappy alternatives. They carried out a qualitative field trial of compostable nappies with a collection system in Sydney and presented findings related to the complexities of implementing this sustainable alternative. Among other things, they found that the busy everyday life of parents allowed little room for adoption of new practices. However, their efforts had eventually been successful in Samoa where different systems of waste management had allowed for implementation.
The Clothing Research Group warmly welcomes Rita Dominici who has come to SIFO for an internship.
Rita Dominici is a second-year student in the master’s program in “Sociology and Social Research” at the University of Trento. She earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology at the University of Bologna with a thesis titled “Fashion as a Social Phenomenon and Consumption Field: The Rise of Fast Fashion and New Paths Towards Sustainability” for which she researched trends in clothing consumption, focusing on current phenomena within production and consumption in the textile industry. She will be working in the CHANGE project during her internship.
Kinga, who has been with us since September, is now moving on and will start a new job as a product developer at Tufte Wear. We wish her all the best!
A recent report by SINTEF for the Wasted Textiles project looks into the value chains of consumer textiles in Norway and calculates the impacts of different scenarios of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) in the Norwegian economy, based on recommendations for a Norwegian EPR scheme.
The main question asked was: what are the impacts of an EPR scheme for Norway based on different fees? The authors further ask: What could be the reduction in the consumption of textile products by households when they become more expensive? And with reduced consumption of textile products, what would be the impacts to the economy, jobs, and carbon emissions?
The authors of the report use SUMS-Norway, a trajectory macroeconomic model, to quantify how the changes in household demand will affect the Norwegian economy. SUMS-Norway is based on the Norwegian ‘supply and use’ table, and represents the interlinkages between industries in the economy, the use of products from all other industries, and how the changes in demand for different products will generate spillovers in the rest of the economy.
Different scenarios with different results
In the report, the authors compare different scenarios that are based on suggestions for the implementation of a Norwegian EPR scheme, with the suggestion of an eco-modulation based on principles suggested by the Wasted Textiles project for a Targeted Producer Responsibility (TPR) scheme. They show that eco-fees that use number of items instead of weight, lead to a higher decrease of synthetic textile products compared to those made of predominantly natural fibres. Scenarios that increase the eco-fee based on predominantly synthetic fibres also lead to significantly higher reduction in the consumption of synthetic textile products and can have important effects on other impacts, such as microplastic pollution and plastic waste in landfills in developing countries.
Some of the most important results highlighted in the report:
Textile consumption would decrease. Eco-fees would be typically integrated in product prices, indirectly transferring waste management costs to consumers and increasing the prices of textile products. Higher fees would potentially lead to higher decrease of textile purchase by households.
Money saved by households from a lower textile consumption would be spent elsewhere.
There will be shifts in the economy due to change in household spendings. This will lead to job losses in the textile industry, but gains in other industries as consumers spend money on other goods and services.
By shifting consumption from textiles to other goods and services, carbon emissions in Norway would increase. This is because of higher economic activity in other industries, while the carbon emissions decrease linked to textile demand, would occur in other countries.
Most of the impacts associated with Norwegian purchase of textile products are felt elsewhere: 88% of the economic value added, 98% of the employment, and 97% of the carbon emissions in the value chain of textiles consumed in Norway happens in other countries, mostly in Asia.
Distribution of impacts on value added creation, employment, and carbon emissions of Norwegian consumption of textile products across global value chains
The authors further show that the impacts on the Norwegian economy are heavily dependent on three factors:
Firstly, the size of the fee. In a situation where the fees are similar to those practiced in France or in the Netherlands, two countries with established EPR schemes, the fees would average 0.61 NOK per item. This would result in a reduction of consumption of 0.6% to 1% in the number of items purchased per year, mostly felt for products made up of mainly synthetic fibres. By 2035, this would lead to households spending 3.6% less in textile products than in a baseline scenario with no eco-fees, corresponding to 1.6 billion NOK, or 0.1% of total household expenditure. This would lead to a loss of 750 million NOK of value added and over 700 jobs disappearing in the Norwegian textile value chain. Most of the economic and job losses would be in the retail industry.
The second factor is where the eco-fees are invested. In 2035, eco-fees collected would amount to 192 million NOK. The investment of 75% of these eco-fees in textile waste management would lead to an increase of 74 million NOK in value added and 61 new jobs in the waste management industry.
The third and most important factor is where households would spend the money they saved by purchasing less textile products. If households spend more money on products and services according to the same distribution as they used in 2022, this would result in additional 2 billion NOK in gross domestic products (GDP) across the entire Norwegian economy in 2035, and over 1,500 additional jobs, including the losses from the textile value chain. If households spend the money on services only, job gains could increase to over 2,000. This is because most of textile products are imported, and changes in their demand mostly affect the textile retail industry, while services have a highly integrated value chain, generating spillover effects across multiple Norwegian industries.
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 the project’s webside woolskirts.cargo).
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.
The ability to affect sustainability outcomes is often culturally gendered. This article examines sustainability practices in fashion in the light of core themes in the gender and sustainability literature, drawing upon a re-analysis of a decade-old dataset of resourceful clothing use practices from the Local Wisdom project. In the dataset, evidence is found both of gendered practices and differentiated levels of involvement by gender. The article presents and examines these findings and then extends the discussion to the effects of gendered influence within the field of fashion sustainability more broadly, a field that may often be seen to be gender-blind. The article argues for a new attention to gender and for a re-imagining of the domain based on metabolism and relationship to overcome ideologies and practices based on separation of one group of people from another and of humans from nature.
This chapter explores the influence of gender on clothing consumption and the impact on differences in clothing volumes between men and women. Based on a qualitative and quantitative wardrobe study, we employ Schatzki’s (2002) social ontology of practice combined with Butler’s (1990) gender performance concept to examine the relationship between gender and clothing consumption in 15 households in Norway. The findings show that women had on average 497 items and the men had 258 items, and the main difference between male and female wardrobes was due to the number of items per occasion. These findings highlights the complexities and tensions faced by women in navigating clothing norms and maintaining a balance in the practice of dressing between appropriate dress, feminine expressions and having an ideal and more sustainable wardrobe. This chapter contributes to a better understanding of the interplay between occasions and gender dynamics that shape clothing consumption patterns. Moreover, it illustrates the potential of ‘occasion’ as an analytical concept and the implications of gender in clothing consumption, challenging the prevailing studies on clothing and fashion that often overlook the nuanced practices and actions that influence clothing volumes.
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 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.
Friluftsliv (outdoor life) is not only a part of the solution, but also a part of the problem when it comes to misuse of nature (Aall et al., 2011). We will reflect around this dilemma in the following text, using synthetic (plastic) clothing as a starting point, additionally we will ask how plastic influences outdoor wear and with our experience of nature. The research question we will discuss is: How do the clothes and shoes we use in friluftsliv create feelings of closeness, control and distance to nature? We will ground our discussion by contrasting plastic and natural materials.
Method
A case study was used to gather data on the experience in nature with non-synthetic outdoor wear and shoes. Life Writing (Fletcher, 2022), photography and sensory ethnography (Vannini, 2024) were the methods. We used ourselves as informants, spending three autumn days in Vågå (Norway) in 2024. The methodologies are self-biographical and make use of feelings and bodily experiences that take place when out in nature wearing non-synthetic garments and shoes. The aim was to describe what we experienced, both positive and negative by not using plastic clothes while in nature. This fieldwork is only one part of a bigger initiative that we hope will result in a project where we can explore the theme of outerwear in friluftsliv in more depth.
Water, valleys, mountains, birds and much more under, over and around us played a part in our experiences. We also collaborated with other partners, most importantly a small leather tanning company ULU1, operated by Sofie and Roni. ULU tans leather and hides gathered in the area, in addition to reconstructions and guided nature tours. Reindeer is the most important resource, and they tan the hides using natural resources such as bark and brain mass from the reindeers (Klepp & Haugrønning, 2021). Accompanying us on one of the days was a film crew from Frys Film2. We wish to thank all our partners, from the reindeer and rain to Sofie and Roni and all their children.
Synthetic clothing in friluftsliv
Friluftsliv has the same environmental challenges as society at large, growing volumes of things. This challenge is driven by another important factor when it comes to clothes and textiles; plastification. These two growing aspects are connected because bigger volumes of textiles would not be possible without plastification (Changing Markets Foundation, 2021; Klepp et al., 2023). Plastification contributes to pollution during production, use and waste by the means of plastic and microplastics (Kounina et al., 2024).
There is no doubt that plastification and growing volumes of outerwear has had a lot of positive effects. We can pack lighter and be safer when outside. The road to the goal, not matter how high or far, is both shorter and faster be it sun or rain, with safer and more remarkable activities added to the mix. The consumption connected to friluftsliv is right for Norway and this growth meets little criticism (Klepp & Skuland, 2013). Few have asked what we lose with this development and little real alternatives to synthetics exists on the marked for many types of garments. Plastification has come such a long way that many consumers do not see it as a serious substitute to go on long trips without synthetic clothing.
The use of synthetics has a very short history. Humans have existed for approximately 300 000 years on this earth. Clothes have been used for only one third of that time. Synthetic textiles, meaning fibers made of fossil fuels (plastic), were invented almost 100 years ago, but they did not explode in popularity until the 1980s. This period saw the invention of synthetic textiles such as polyester, fleece and Gore-Tex, which has since become staples of the outerwear industry3. Our dependency on synthetics in outerwear is, historically, a short one. Furthermore, these past decades humans have spent more time inside than ever before. Our wish to spend time outside without plastic is therefore grounded in many historical role models and references. The garments we used were a combination of copies of old garments (form the Iron and the Viking ages) and newly developed garments made with old techniques and principles.
Results
We both use a lot of clothing made from natural fibers, yet being clothed without any plastic felt different. We had chosen four examples form the empirical material and structured them around four senses; sight, touch, smell and hearing.
Sight
The sense of sight is important for friluftsliv. We enjoy the view and lose ourselves in the colors and details around us. Yet, we do not only see the nature. We also see each other not only while out in nature, but also on pictures from the trips afterwards.
In the presentation we showed Figure 1, a picture form the trip where Ronny, Sofie and Frys film crew were with us. The film crew documented as we walked up the path on Snaufjellet in the drizzle. The picture is of Ingun and Sofie in a grand scenery with the sky, mountains, fog and the mountain we walked on covered in low heather. The colors are muted, with warm rust-tones and cautious greys in the forefront, on our clothes and in the nature around us. The reindeer moss and a light grey hint of a clearing in the clouds bring most contrast to the picture. In the presentation we showed a close up of the two people on the right of the image. And then we panned out, showing the same photo but with a wider angle. Here the Frys film crew is also visible. In this angle the eye travels away from the greys and rustics and attaches itself to the strong synthetic colors of raincoats and backpacks. Yellowish greens, orange, turquoise and black appear in the foreground and catch the eye. These clothes and equipment are not derived from natural materials, not ‘belonging’ in the nature, but create a contrast to it, which is often the case in photos of the outdoors. Photos of nature with and without humans are inherently different this way. Synthetic clothing and clothing made of natural fibers with synthetic colors change the way we look and what we see.
Figure 1: the affect of outdoor wear colour palettes on the visual sense. Photo credit: Kate Fletcher
Touch
The sense of touch is understood as everything we feel through our skin. We experience heat, cold, wind, different surfaces and much more. We feel the clothes we have on our body. We use clothes and shoes to avoid feeling too much and perhaps avoid feeling every pinecone on the path and every needling wind gust.
A lot of synthetics in outerwear are used to avoid feeling different sensations, such as being wet or cold. Fig 2 shows Ingun in the rain , to reflect on what we lose when using plastic. Gore-tex and other technologies of the same sort are characterized by the use of microporous film containing the forever-chemical from the PFAS group. The aim of the film is to keep away moisture, while at the same time having so-called “breathable” qualities. This in turn means that the film is letting water vapor through. In theory, this film is keeping the wearer dry by letting out the vapor created by the body when moving (or even when sitting still or sleeping), while it simultaneously is supposed to keep rain or sea spray out. In reality, this does not always work.
Figure 2: alternative rain wear. Photo credit: Kate Fletcher
Other techniques to keep water out can be used. One such way is to lead the water away. The double coat which used to exist on sheep of older species, before being bred off in order to adapt the wool to modern spinning machines, comprises of long covering or guard hairs which lead water and moisture away from the soft underwool. We humans use this technique when hanging up a chain from gutters rather than installing a pipe to lead away the water. The water follows the chain down to the ground.
Ingun wore a short cape on the trip, which was made out of seal skin. The raindrops dripped from her hair and down the seal skin before being led away by the guard hairs on the collar. Ingun was warm beneath the hair and skin. The clothing she wore did not cover her entire body. Her knees and calves were uncovered. “I am particularly fond of water in all forms. Sea, rain, ice, snow and fog. Being able to feel water run down the skin is lovely” she explains. Taking off clothes is one way to keep them dry of course. Going out in nature without clothes or with some body parts uncovered allows for the feeling of rain against the skin. To be wet is not always synonymous with being cold. Our habit of wearing garments that keep the water out, robs us of the feeling of rain against the skin. This is further enforced when using tightly woven clothing which not only keeps the water away, but also keeps the wind and yes, even air out from our biggest sensory apparatus, our skin.
The feet are the body part that has been affected by plastification the most. This is not a theme that will be explored further as being barefoot or nude, meaning without shoes or clothes, changes the way we exist in the world. We hope to be able to return to this subject and many others at a later date.
Smell
Clothes smell. In actuality, we do a lot in order to control the smell of clothing, such as washing them (Klepp et al., 2022; Laitala et al., 2022; McQueen et al., 2022). The sense of smell has a fascinating history, being perceived as animalistic and subjugated to sight as a less intellectual and less human sense (Classen et al., 1994) Klepp et al., 2022).
Textiles, as well as leather and fur have a distinct odor. Different fabrics are also affected differently by sweat and other bodily functions. Sweat lends most odor to synthetics and least to wool (Klepp et al., 2016; Rathinamoorthy & Thilagavathi, 2014). Synthetic fibers are therefor put through different chemical process to supress the development of smells. Materials also have a distinct smell, which we can like or dislike. The following is a quote from Kate’s dairy about the experience of smell when it comes to clothing:
I am wearing a skin jacket made from reindeer hide and tanned with bark. It is light on my body, my shoulders, my arms, and it fills my nose with the scent of animal. The smell is full, strong and heavy. In a culture obsessed by cleanliness and fragrance, it is an odour of significance. It is a jacket marked in a way that synthetic ones never are – directly by a life, by a body that gave us its skin, by a heart of blood, the flex and taint of muscle. Does Friluftsliv have a smell?
Hearing
Both silence and noise are important aspects of friluftslivet (Faarlund 1992). When it comes to clothing this topic is most discussed in relation to hunting. Silent clothing is what differentiates hunting attire from other outdoor wear. But the sound clothes make is important for not only potential hunting prey.
Woven fabrics make more noise than their knitted counterparts, and the sound is often an important and appreciated part of the fabric’s aesthetic. The rustling of a silk underskirt is well described in novels. Woven synthetic textiles such as Gore-tex jackets and trousers make a lot of noise. They rustle when movement makes the fabrics rub against each other. This became obvious on the trip where the film crew joined us. Instead of the birds surrounding us, all we could hear was their clothing. making it almost impossible to hear anything other than our own selves. Environmental philosophers might say that this is the root of the problem. We always put ourselves in focus. What is necessary for us to start dressing in a way that allows us to listen to the world around us and less to ourselves? The big portion of outdoor wear comprising of synthetics with water- and wind resistant properties contributes to putting ourselves in focus.
Conclusion
We have shown that friluftsliv does not gain a lot by the use of synthetics and on the other hand loses something by looking at how plastic effects out senses (sight, hearing, touch, smell) when out in nature. Outdoor wear contains more plastic (synthetic fibres) than other types of clothing. Synthetics fibres and the laminates that come with, create a literal barrier between us and nature. Sometimes this is what we want, other times not. Plastic is closely related to overproduction and waste generation due to low cost and easy production. The fibres are so strong that they outlast the wearer and keep polluting even when breaking down back to earth. The garments that we use to be safe and comfortable in nature also keep the nature away from us, raise a barrier between us and the world and do not fit into earth’s natural cycle.
Environmental philosophers have long argued that the root of the environmental challenges we face is connected to our willingness to see ourselves as separate from nature (e.g. Plumwood, 1998). Therefore, it is possible to say that the synthetic fibres in clothing are the embodiment of techniques used to dominate and control nature, despite us being very much dependent on it and wishing to unite with it by the ways of friluftsliv. This paradox is at the heart of our work.
References
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Changing Markets Foundation. (2021). Fossil Fashion: The hidden reliance on fossil fuels. C. M. Foundation. http://changingmarkets.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/FOSSIL-FASHION_Web-compressed.pdf
Classen, C., Howes, D., & Synnott, A. (1994). Aroma: the cultural history of smell. Routledge.
Klepp, Ingun Grimstad: syntetiske fibre i Store norske leksikon på snl.no. Hentet 29. desember 2024.
Klepp, I. G., Berg, L. L., Sigaard, A. S., Tobiasson, T. S., Hvass, K. K., & Gleisberg, L. (2023). THE PLASTIC ELEPHANT: overproduction and synthetic fibres in sustainable textiles strategies (SIFO-Project report 5-2023, Issue. https://hdl.handle.net/11250/3086387
Klepp, I. G., Buck, M., Laitala, K., & Kjeldsberg, M. (2016). What’s the problem? Odor-control and the smell of sweat in sportswear. Fashion Practice: The Journal of Design, Creative Process & the Fashion Industry, 8(2), 296-317. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17569370.2016.1215117
Klepp, I. G., & Haugrønning, V. (2021). Naturgarvet skinn i et miljøperspektiv. In: Forbruksforskningsinstituttet SIFO, OsloMet.
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Laitala, K., Klepp, I. G., & Haugrønning, V. (2022). Textile Cleaning and Odour Removal. In G. Thilagavathi & R. Rathinamoorthy (Eds.), Odour in Textiles: Generation and Control (pp. 197-222). CRC Press. https://doi.org/10.1201/9781003141426-10
McQueen, R. H., Kowton, J. E., & Degenstein, L. M. (2022). More than Just Appearance: Management of Clothing-Related Odor in Everyday Life. Fashion Practice, 1-26. https://doi.org/10.1080/17569370.2022.2062830
Rathinamoorthy, R., & Thilagavathi, G. (2014). Effect of Antimicrobial Finish on Odor Control Properties of Apparel Fabric. Journal of Textile & Apparel Technology & Management (JTATM), 9(1).
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.
