The overproduction of garments, often of low quality, contributes significantly to environmental degradation, especially in the Global South. Therefore, assessing the durability of garments has attracted the attention of industry organizations and legislators. Recent research has identified both intrinsic and extrinsic dimensions of durability and their links to a circular transition. This study aims to deepen the understanding of garment durability by incorporating the local perspectives of five different global communities. Using a participatory action research methodology, semi-structured interviews were conducted with stakeholders across value chains in France, Ghana, Indonesia, Norway, and South Africa. The key findings of this study have been grouped into 8 trends that characterize garment durability: (1) quality is preferred over durability, (2) garment durability is dynamic, (3) price and brand are related to perceived durability, (4) local refers to geographical proximity, (5) local involves value creation, (6) local touches tradition, (7) traditional garments and textiles are more durable, and (8) local contexts influence garment durability. These trends indicate that local factors significantly influence the definition and practice of durability, suggesting that global legislation must consider such nuances when describing and quantifying durability in the context of garments and textiles.
Vanacker, H., Lemieux, A.-A., Laitala, K., Dindi, M., Bonnier, S., & Lamouri, S. (2025). Understanding garment durability through local lenses: a participatory study with communities across the globe. Scientific Reports, 15(1), 34962. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-19087-3
A new open-access article in Scientific Reports (Nature Portfolio) explores how communities across the globe define and practice garment durability. The study, titled “Understanding garment durability through local lenses: a participatory study with communities across the globe”, was led by PhD candidate Hester Vanacker and co-authored with an international team of researchers: Andrée-Anne Lemieux, Kirsi Laitala, Michelle Dindi, Sophie Bonnier and Samir Lamouri. Kirsi Laitala is one of Hester’s supervisors and contributed to this article through Lasting project.
Addressing global challenges in fashion and sustainability
The fashion and textile sector is highly resource-intensive industry. The overproduction of low-quality garments contributes significantly to environmental degradation, particularly in the Global South. As policymakers and industry actors work toward more sustainable and circular systems, garment durability – how long clothes last and why they are kept or discarded—has become a key issue.
While durability is often understood in technical terms such as fabric strength or wear resistance, this study broadens the concept to include social, cultural, and local dimensions. It asks how people in different parts of the world define, value, and maintain the longevity of their clothing.
A participatory global study
The research team employed Participatory Action Research (PAR), conducting semi-structured interviews with 73 participants across the garment value chain in France, Ghana, Indonesia, Norway, and South Africa. The participants represented a diverse range of roles, including artisans, designers, second-hand sellers, educators, activists, and members of NGOs.
This inclusive approach allowed the researchers to capture perspectives from both the Global North and the Global South, offering insight into how local conditions, such as climate, culture, and available materials, influence the meaning and practice of garment durability.
Eight trends shaping the understanding of durability
The study identified eight interconnected trends that illustrate how notions of “durability” and “local” intersect:
Quality is preferred over durability – Many equate durability with quality and craftsmanship.
Garment durability is dynamic – Clothing gains and changes value through care, repair, and reuse.
Price and brand influence perceptions of durability – Branded or expensive garments are often assumed to last longer.
Local refers to geographical proximity – Locally produced and used garments carry added meaning and value.
Local involves value creation – Garments that support local livelihoods and skills strengthen communities.
Local touches tradition – Traditional garments reflect heritage and collective identity.
Traditional garments and textiles are more durable – Cultural significance often encourages better care and longevity.
Local contexts influence durability – Climate, culture, and social practices affect how long garments stay in use.
A framework for more inclusive policies
Based on these findings, the authors propose a revised framework for garment durability that integrates local contexts alongside technical and environmental considerations. The framework emphasizes the need for context-sensitive approaches in emerging sustainability regulations and industry standards.
“Policies developed in the Global North often have unintended consequences elsewhere,” says Hester Vanacker, “Our findings show that a meaningful understanding of durability must include the perspectives and practices of local communities worldwide.”
Garment durability and resilience framework (a) Original and (b) revised version including the local context
Towards a locally grounded circular transition
By highlighting the connections between global trends and local experiences, the study contributes to a more holistic understanding of durability in the context of circular economy and sustainable fashion. It calls for legislation and industry practices that respect cultural diversity and the lived realities of garment users and producers around the world.
The research also demonstrates how participatory methodologies can bridge academic and community-based knowledge, ensuring that sustainability transitions are both equitable and grounded in real-world contexts.
Vanacker, H., Lemieux, A.-A., Laitala, K., Dindi, M., Bonnier, S., & Lamouri, S. (2025). Understanding garment durability through local lenses: a participatory study with communities across the globe. Scientific Reports, 15(1), 34962. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-19087-3
Just published in Fashion Theory, an article exploring durability through a decolonial lens. The research it builds on was conducted as part of the LASTING project, led by our very own Kirsi Laitala and funded by the Research Council of Norway.
The article, written by Kate Fletcher and Anna Fitzpatrick, is open access. Please share widely. Grateful thanks to all those who participated in the research. Link to article here
From the abstract: Durability is widely recognized as a key feature of materially resourceful, lower-carbon clothing lives. Yet most of what is known about long-lasting garments is rooted in Euro-American ways of thinking, and reproduces its structures, priorities, values and resulting actions. This paper brings a decolonial concern to understandings of clothing durability to enlarge the conceptual boundaries around it, including those that break apart dominant ideas and approaches to clothing durability in order to show difference. It presents both the “workings” and the “findings” of a small research project, ‘Decentering Durability’, examining both how research is conducted as well as what is uncovered at the intersection of decolonizing and resource-efficient, decarbonizing agendas for fashion.
The European Sociological Association’s main biennial event this year took the clothing researchers to Porto!
When: 27th – 30th August 2024 Where: University of Porto, Portugal
Set on the beautiful backdrop of Porto, the main themes of the 16th ESA conference were “Tension, Trust and Transformation”. About 20 researchers from Consumption Research Norway SIFO participated in the conference this time around, which for a long time has been a very important arena for the institute, in particular, through the Sociology of Consumption Research Network.
Between sessions, we also had time to visit the city, eat some Francesinha and get acquainted with the chickens living on campus.
Four presentations from the SIFO Clothing Researchers
Vilde presenting at ESAAnna presenting at ESA
In the session ‘Clothing consumption 1: Fashion’, Vilde Haugrønning presented the paper ‘Gender Dynamics in Clothing Consumption: Examining the Inflow and Outflow of Clothing from a Practice Oriented Perspective’ based on results from the wardrobe studies of her PhD project in the CHANGE project.
In the session ‘Clothing consumption 2: Identity’, Anna Schytte Sigaard presented her paper ‘Social Practices and Identity-Work: Life Course Changes as Drivers for Textile Disposal’ based on results from the wardrobe studies of her PhD project in the Wasted Textiles project.
Kirsi presenting at ESALisbeth Presenting ar ESA
In the session, Imaginaries of Consumption, Lisbeth Løvbak Berg presented a paper from the IMAGINE project, “Futures Literacy: Norwegian imaginaries of food and clothing consumption”, co-written with Justyna Jakubiec and Atle Wehn Hegnes. The paper explores how futures literacy of food and clothing consumption is exhibited in the material collected in the project, across the three stakeholder groups, consumers, businesses and policymakers.
In the session ‘Clothing consumption 3: Sustainability’, chaired by Anna, Kirsi presented the paper ‘Wardrobe Revelations: Rethinking Repair Practices and Clothing Consumption’. The paper is based on survey data collected in the CHANGE project.
In the same session, our research friend, Réka Tölg, PhD Candidate at Lund University, also presented the paper ‘Caring Circularities: Enacting Circular Consumption by Caring for and with Clothes’, co-authored with Christian Fuentes.
UNESCO has championed futures literacy since 2012, highlighting its importance in the context of imagining alternative futures and directing change towards desirable futures. It follows that futures literacy allows people to actively engage with the plurality of images of the future and relate them to their own choices and ideas of (un)desirable futures. While this includes understanding the role of the future also in people’s everyday consumption practices, which inevitably play a major role in the green transition, efforts are largely focused on policy planning, business innovation and higher education. We, therefore, ask what level of futures literacy Norwegian stakeholders exhibit related to food and clothing consumption. Based on stories collected from 137 Norwegian consumers, advertisements, and business strategy and policy documents, we highlight the different stakeholders’ narratives of food and clothing consumption to compare their engagement with present imaginaries of future consumption. We find that businesses and policymakers display a higher level of future literacy than consumers. In general, the narratives of food consumption are richer and more well-developed than those of clothing consumption: business and policy documents’ narratives of sustainable clothing futures are limited to the repeating narrative of ‘repair, reuse, recycle’, whereas food consumption narratives range from self-sufficiency to alternative protein sources. The latter suggests a higher level of future literacy, which may reflect a more mature discussion of food futures: adversely, the lack of attention to alternative forms of clothing consumption decreases the likelihood of a larger transformation of clothing consumption patterns.
Gender Dynamics in Clothing Consumption: Examining the Inflow and Outflow of Clothing from a Practice Oriented Perspective
Vilde Haugrønning
The present-day consumption of clothing is marked by excessive production and consumption, leading to issues of water scarcity, microplastic pollution, chemical contamination, CO2 emissions, and textile waste. In order to mitigate the environmental impact of clothing, there is an urgent need to examine the factors influencing the high volume of garments in wardrobes. This study explores the influence of gender and age on clothing consumption based on a qualitative and quantitative wardrobe study of 15 households in Norway from a practice oriented perspective. Each household had a man and a woman living together as partners to enable a gendered comparison between couples that take part in many of the same practices and share the everyday life. In the wardrobe study, the participants conducted a counting exercise of all the garments they owned, including underwear, socks and accessories. Following this, each participant was asked to register all inflow and outflow of clothing for 6 months. The analysis focus on the turnover rate of clothing and employs Evan’s (2019) six moments of consumption that focus on processes of acquiring and disposing in relation to practices. Preliminary findings show that female participants acquired a higher quantity of clothing compared to male participants. However, age also play a significant role in determining the turnover rate of clothing. The study highlights the social mechanisms and gender dynamics that shape clothing consumption patterns and challenges the prevailing studies on clothing and fashion that often overlook the nuanced practices and actions that influence clothing volumes.
Social Practices and Identity-Work: Life Course Changes as Drivers for Textile Disposal
Anna Schytte Sigaard
In this contribution, the complex interconnections between social practices and textile consumption are explored. Based on wardrobe interviews in 28 Norwegian households, investigation is carried out of the influence of two major life course changes, cohabitation, and parenthood, on disposal of clothing and other textile items. In the transition from living alone to cohabitation, it is found that the disposal of clothing and textiles emerges not only as a functional act but as a symbolic act of divestment. Spatially and temporally separated practices, such as pre-move closet purges and post-move decoration, underscore the profound identity-work involved in this transition where discarded items come to symbolize remnants of single life. Parenthood introduces a challenging balance between environmentally conscious practices and time constraints, unveiling compromises made in sustainable practices amidst the demands of parenting. The disposal of impractical gifts and inherited baby clothes reflects the negotiation of a new parental identity. In this contribution, the importance of individual reflexivity in the negotiation of identities during major life transitions is emphasized. Thereby, it contributes to expanding the understanding of clothing and textile consumption as both routinized and mundane practices at the same time as involving intentional and reflexive discursive activities.
Wardrobe Revelations: Rethinking Repair Practices and Clothing Consumption
Kirsi Laitala
Global clothing production and consumption pose significant challenges to environmental, social, and economic sustainability, particularly driven by the fast-fashion business model linking the global North and South. This study, based on a Norwegian consumer survey (N=1200), investigates factors influencing volumes of clothing consumption. Analyzing acquisition, ownership (wardrobe size), and disposal volumes, principal component analysis (PCA) factor extraction was used to identify key constructs related to respondents’ preferences and perceptions of clothing acquisition, use and repair practices. Gender and age emerge as pivotal determinants, with women reporting higher acquisition, ownership, and disposal levels than men. Those in their 50s possess the largest wardrobes, while younger individuals exhibited a higher frequency of clothing acquisition and disposal, and thus higher turnover rates of their wardrobe contents. Surprisingly, the study reveals that higher repair intentions or focus on quality do not correspond to reduced consumption. These counterintuitive results challenge conventional assumptions about the relationship between these practices and overall consumption. Similarly, factors such as the allure of sales, impulse buying, and the desire to appear well-dressed contributed to increased consumption levels, emphasizing the influence of psychological and social factors. The lack of correlation between reduced consumption and the intention to focus on buying fewer quality items and repairing more implies a need for alternative strategies that consumers can apply to address their consumption levels and related sustainability challenges in the fashion industry. This research emphasizes the urgency of reevaluating current practices and fostering a more sustainable and conscientious approach to clothing consumption.
Increasing product longevity is seen as an effective way to reduce consumption within the circular economy. This paper explores narratives of product longevity, focusing on textiles, household appliances, and furniture as expressed by Norwegian business representatives and consumers. The study reveals dominant narratives of physical and emotional durability among businesses. Conversely, consumers emphasise managing consumption volumes and their relationship with products based on use contexts and life events. While both groups recognise the importance of physical durability, there’s a disconnect regarding how emotional attachment can be created between user and product, and the significance of production volumes. The study suggests that narratives of product longevity, shift focus from production to consumption, distancing from questions of volume and growth and that efforts should take ‘life durability’ of products into account when designing strategies and interventions aimed at extending product lifespans, including business models and policy directly targeting lower production volumes.
Authors: Kirsi Laitela, Ingun Grimstad Klepp and Lisbeth Løvbak Berg
Abstract
Reducing the environmental impact of clothing is dependent on a reduction of the produced volume. This chapter discusses how mode and volumes of acquisition impact the lifetimes of clothing. Based on our scoping review and reanalysis of international wardrobe audit data, we find that the number of garments that are acquired has most impact, making clothing utilization an important concept. Secondhand garments are used fewer times than new items, and gifts less than self-chosen items. Self-made clothing was worn less than tailored garments, showing that product personalisation can both shorten and increase lifetimes. Slowing down the rate of acquisition and increasing the lifetime with the first user should be the focus of policy development.
In K. Niinimäki (Ed.), Recycling and Lifetime Management in the Textile and Fashion Sector
“Let’s see the forest for the trees” was one of the talk-titles during the end seminar for the Lasting project, offered by PhD student Kamila Krych at NTNU. Hitting the nail on the head, she pointed to that fast fashion’s business model of extreme planned obsolescence is spreading to other product groups. There has been a rise in the number of kitchen stoves being bought that is higher than any increase in households can explain.
Lasting is not quite on its last legs, it will continue until the end of 2023, and an exhibit is planned in 2024 at Klimahuset to round it all off. However, the main findings were presented at the seminar in front of an audience of students, research partners, NGO and public servant partners, industry organizations and some from the Research Council. The title for the seminar was “Lost in the masses: Is product longevity the solution?”, and the theme has been increasingly relevant as we have seen EU policy focusing more and more on product longevity.
Project lead Kirsi Laitala summing up.
The venue was supposed to have been Sustainathon at Meetingpoint X, which was postponed until next year at the last minute, and the Lasting team did a great job of making the most of the venue-change to OsloMet. A recording of the proceedings is available here.
As mentioned, the main theme was where does durability and longevity have a function, and where is it actually a roadblock, in the meaning that it confounds the discussion and the way forward to reduce volumes and deplastify (mainly) apparel and other textiles? While durability and longevity are important for household appliances, to a certain degree also for furniture – the push and pull forces governing the inflow and outflow of apparel and other textiles has little to do with durability or repairability. On the other hand, when it comes to washing machines, we buy a new one when the old breaks down, so policy governing longevity and the right to repair makes a lot of sense. But what makes sense for one product-group, may not do so for all products in another. “For nylon stockings, maybe, but not for most apparel items,” according to Professor in Clothing and Sustainability, Ingun Grimstad Klepp.
Professor Ingun Klepp engaging the audience.
She went on to explain: “If we are demanding more durable apparel products, using standard tests for strength, pilling, color-fastness, whatever, means more plastic. If we are looking at regulation of waste, eco-modulating fees based on weight, we favor plastic apparel, as synthetics in general are lighter. If we are looking at recycled content as a policy tool, synthetics win again, even though it will mainly be from recycled bottles. And, last but not least, if we use LCAs to dictate what are preferred fibers, again synthetics win.“
Citing research from CHANGE-researcher, Irene Maldini, Klepp went on to explain more on “pull” and “push” forces: Replacement as the driving force for buying something new is only 2,5% of the reason for apparel purchased, as a direct need to replace something that is broken or worn out. Closer to 30% was bought because the item “was on sale” or other occasions that spoke to opportunity. This points to that policy needs much more data on the push and pull forces than is currently available.
The drastic increase in apparel, which far outstrips an increase in need for more (there wasn’t a lack of textiles or footwear in year 2000 and the world population has not doubled in the time span), is also mainly driven by the availability of cheap synthetic fibers, polyester being the largest of these.
Audrun Utskarpen from the Nordic Eco Label, Lorelou Desjardins from the Consumer Council, Associate Professor Johan Berg Pettersen from NTNU, Professors Kate Fletcher and Ingun Grimstad Klepp from SIFO/OsloMet participated in a debate on to what degree product longevity can or cannot impact overproduction. As the Nordic Swan for example already has concrete “durability” demands for products; however, in order to have good baseline data, Utskarpen said that waste audits that could offer good data on what ends up in which waste streams, would be very useful to understand “real life” durability for apparel. Desjardins spoke about their Greenwashing prize, which even gained attention internationally, and was awarded Zalando last year, but also on how their internal research had made her wary of buying almost anything. Pettersen brought up that more and more consumer goods are becoming “disposable” and that waste generation is increasing, not decreasing. Which Klepp pointed to is a production-problem related to massive marketing, and not something we should put on the consumers’ shoulders. “We could ban all marketing as a scenario,” Klepp proposed, as consumers who are – everywhere they turn – told how sustainable their next purchase will be.
Lisbeth Løvbak Berg spoke about different attitudes towards and understanding of longevity between consumers and businesses.
Fletcher suggested that if everyone worked for a week at the Consumer Council, seeing what they uncovered in their daily tasks on toxic chemicals, etc. would quickly suppress the need to buy anything at all. She was, of course, joking, but more seriously she added that the idea that service design in itself will change the systemic problems (rental, repair, etc.) is not proven in any way by research – what is clear is that only if volumes are decreased will new business models have a chance of survival. Pettersen repeated Klepp’s point of strategies focusing on products, rather than systems and that as long as businesses do not actually feel the planetary boundaries, they are not going to change.
Leading up to this debate, Kirsi Laitala, leader of the Lasting project, talked about consumer attitudes towards durability for all the product groups in the project (based on focus groups), and called out one winner on the aspect of durability (obviously not in the textile sector): the Moccamaster coffee machine. Lisbeth Løvbak Berg spoke on the opposing narratives from businesses vs consumers themselves on what actually had a long life – and introduced Chapman’s teddy bear effect as the beacon. The teddy bear turned up again and again after that… as an ideal but also as something that children today have too many of, though probably the most loved one is loved to pieces.
Fletcher reminded us all that durability is not a monolithic construct, and also that it is a weak force compared to economic growth and capitalism – recognize the incompleteness of our knowledge and our colonial legacies we cannot escape. The idea that Western thinking and approaches are relevant everywhere, when they aren’t and we need to be reminded about this again and again, as Harald Throne-Holst, the moderator, reiterated: context, context, context. Being part of a community is a value in other parts of the world, that counts much more than amassing new stuff. Echoed by Pettersen, and relating it also to rebound effects. Not to forget Krych’s industrial ecology insights from her on-going PhD in the project, reminding us also to look at the big picture.
From the workshop.
The day was rounded off with a workshop in Norwegian, where a 2023 baseline situation for different consumers was juxtaposed against a 2050 future where limited resources would not make it possible to “live the same life”. The case studies were related to a family with small children, the student on the brink of a new life as a bread winner, and an older couple moving from their house to a smaller apartment. Many interesting options were proposed, f ex more community-based solutions.
The big discussion has just begun. Lasting products will work for many important product-groups, such as household appliances, electronics and even furniture. Nylon stockings are also on the list. Teddy bears: well, the vote is not yet in. The most worn ones are often the most loved.
Where: OsloMet, Pilestredet 35, Ellen Gleditschs hus: PH131, Anna Felbers auditorium (1st floor)
The Lasting project presents findings from 3 years of research on product lifespans and sustainability. The project led by Consumption Research Norway SIFO at Oslo Metropolitan University (OsloMet) gathered actors from the Norwegian home appliances, textile and furniture sectors. The partners have researched the material streams, consumer and business perspectives as well as policy in the area of product lifetimes with the goal of moving towards a sustainable future where products last for a long time.
This seminar will be of particular interest to anyone working with sustainability, product design, business models or policy development.
The seminar is followed by a workshop where we move from theoretical to practical explorations, examining how we could live with our things in the future. Here we will play around with design briefs based on the project findings.
The seminar will be in English, while the workshop will be in Norwegian.
10:00 Welcome by Harald Throne-Holst, Researcher at SIFO
10:05 Consumer views on increasing product lifetimes by Kirsi Laitala, project leader and Researcher at SIFO
10:30 Let’s see the forest for the trees: industrial ecology insights into product lifetimes by Kamila Krych, PhD Candidate at NTNU
10:55 Conflicting narratives of product longevity by Lisbeth Løvbak Berg, Researcher at SIFO
11:20 Durability in product policy – The limitation of the dream of longer life by Ingun Grimstad Klepp, Professor in Clothing and Sustainability at SIFO
11:45 Lunch
12:30 Lost in sameness: plurality, clothing and durability by Kate Fletcher, Professor at the Royal Danish Academy
12:55 Discussion: overproduction and product longevity
13:25 Coffee break and room change for workshop participants: Room PI451 (4th floor)
13:45 Workshop (in Norwegian): Tingene og oss i fremtiden
15:15 End
The Lasting project is funded by the Research Council of Norway. Read more about the project at the project website (lasting.world).
This paper explores narratives of product longevity expressed by businesses and consumers, with the aim of illuminating and comparing ways in which the two stakeholder groups express their engagement with products in the context of prolonging their lifespans. We base our analysis on consumer focus groups and interviews with company representatives. Our focus is on textiles (incl. clothing) and furniture. We find that technical and emotional durability are the two dominant ways of understanding product longevity by company representatives. Consumers, however, tell a different story, of living with their things, of use, of time passing, and of life events triggering change. This is a context in which social and systemic factors play a large role in determining the lifespan of a product – factors that are external to the product itself. Although all can agree on the importance of technical durability, problems connected to excessive production volumes and how products feature in everyday life are avoided in narratives produced by business actors. We argue that corporate narratives of product longevity are diverting our attention away from production toward consumption, keeping questions of volume and growth at arm’s length. These conflict with consumer narratives of product longevity that grapple with the materiality of the things within the context of lived lives in a consumer economy.
Authors: Kirsi Laitala, Lisbeth Løvbak Berg and Pål Strandbakken.
Abstract
The Consumer Purchases Act is one of the cornerstones for ensuring that businesses are liable for defective or faulty products that do not meet the minimum requirements for lifespans. However, this right is too seldom used by consumers. This paper discusses the reasons for not complaining based on six consumer focus groups, where in total 36 consumers described furniture, electronics, and textile products that they were dissatisfied with. Many complaints were not made due to consumers’ cost-benefit evaluations, where they considered the economic costs, time use, and the needed effort, as well as the probability of getting the complaint accepted. Many participants lacked the competencies required to make the judgment when the right is applicable and where and how to proceed. Further, the expectations based on price and brand, properties of the product such as materials, as well as the type of fault and its relation to use were important. Strengthening and extending consumer rights to complain are discussed as an important part of the strategy to increase the quality of goods and extend their lifetimes. The findings show barriers and opportunities to the efficacy of this strategy that is highly relevant for policy development. There is a need for clear guidelines on what the consumer rights are for the specific products, what is considered unacceptable abrasion and normal use, and differentiation between commercial warranties and legal rights. Complaints are an important avenue for businesses to gain information about the performance of their products, and for legal durability expectations to be enforced.
