Woolume: Potential new products from vacant wool

Lisbeth Løvbak Berg on 26. January 2022

Anna Schytte Sigaard, Lisbeth Løvbak Berg and Ingun Grimstad Klepp

Summary

This report gives an overview of the market for alternative wool products with the perceived potential to be made using vacant wool. The work is based on a desktop study and interviews with manufacturers and distributors, focusing on products made of wool and their qualities. The report is the second deliverable from work package 2 of the WOOLUME project. The main goal of WOOLUME is to explore different ways of using wool from the Polish Mountain Sheep to achieve better utilisation of resources and value creation. Producers were identified that use wool as a material for products in the following categories: cultivation, soil improvement, insulation and personal hygiene as well as other new and alternative wool products. Findings show a range of products that take advantage of the many properties of wool, both aesthetic and technical. They also show that wool has the potential to replace synthetic materials in several applications and create truly circular products when treated in a way that preserves biodegradability. Though Merino wool dominates the wool market, several producers make use of other, local wool qualities and the interest for using the vacant wool, often discarded as a mere by-product of meat and dairy production, is growing. However, there is further potential for optimising resource utilisation in using vacant wool, in particular, non-spinnable wool with a higher fibre thickness, in products where the fineness and spinnability of merino wool are not required.

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

Responsible Fashion: How do we make our ideas a reality?

Lisbeth Løvbak Berg on 3. November 2021

Symposium hosted by Instituto Maragoni, London

24th November 2021, 9:30 am – 4:30 pm GMT

This online symposium offers a space to propose and discuss radical new ways to envisage fashion and how these may be implemented.

About this event

The pandemic has provided space to step back and to reflect, to ask questions about the meaning, value and potential of fashion in a post-Covid world. How can the industry move forward in a responsible way? How must it change? What does responsible fashion really mean? What is it that we actually want to sustain? We know the problems, so let’s find solutions.

We will present our work with wool during the symposium.

Click here to see the recordings from the event (researchiml.com).

Design process: research tools for CHANGE

ingridha on 12. October 2021

During the first week of September 2021, CHANGE researchers collaborated with the Master Digital Design of the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, in the context of its Design Processes Track. You can read about the course here (masterdigitaldesign.com).

Guided by Angella Mackey, a diverse group of 48 international students proposed 12 research tools that could be used in the fieldwork phase of CHANGE. The purpose of this design sprint was for the students to start their year rapidly producing design concepts for a real-world design challenge. The sprint guided them through collecting user data, building, and testing a prototype in 4 days. CHANGE’s researchers Ingun Klepp, Vilde Haugrønning, Ingrid Haugsrud and Irene Maldini participated in answering student queries, and acting as a jury for the most feasible and the most original solution proposed by students.

The “Most Feasible” nomination went to “Two peas on a Polaroid”.

The “Most Original” solution was awarded to “Momo”

Moreover, the jury awarded two extra mentions to:

BUDDY, for the use of automated voice communication with respondents

GARMOTIONS, for the focus on emotions as a drive for outfit choice

Out of the Wardrobe

Lisbeth Løvbak Berg on 5. October 2021

Webinar: 21st of October 2021, 10:45 – 14:00 CEST

An international panel discuss how wardrobe studies can help us to understand how what we wear can make a sustainable future

About this event

The remit of wardrobe studies is not limited to actual garments or textile objects, although it often starts there, but to consider the way clothes communicate notions of self, emotion, place, connectivity and relationships that hitherto would be unspoken and/or rendered mute. Wardrobe studies offer a way in which these relationships or clothing experiences can be recorded, interpreted and also utilized outside of the realms of academia to understand the ways in which clothing is selected, used, kept, discarded and so on, in order to change or challenge clothing consumption, to empower the user, to improve clothing manufacture or indeed to revitalize or instigate it. Wardrobe studies are concerned with clothing behaviours in everyday life, from start to finish, birth to death and everything in-between.

Schedule

9.45 – opening welcome and introduction ( Dr Jo Turney)

10.00 – Keynote speaker – Dr Ingun Grimstad Klepp (Oslo Metropolitan University) Professor in Clothing and sustainability The presentation will provide a short overview of the history of wardrobe studies and how the method was developed through collaboration between clothing, design and fashion researchers the last 20 years. It will then look at what characterizes the method and why it is so useful when working towards sustainable development. Ingun will provide examples from ongoing projects where the method is being used in very different ways, from improving LCA for clothing to understanding wardrobe dynamics. This includes using the method for quantitative as well as qualitative purposes. Examples of ongoing studies at SIFO are CHANGE and Wasted Textiles. In CHANGE the main objective is occasions and variety in couples’ wardrobes. You can read more about the study here: CHANGE: Environmental systems shift in clothing consumption – OsloMet. Wasted Textiles will map textiles that is going out of use in households to increase knowledge about the ways this waste is generated and disposed of, and its fibre composition. You can read more about the study here: Wasted Textiles – OsloMet. Currently, the researchers are re-analyzing material from two earlier wardrobe studies conducted at SIFO for potential use in both CHANGE and Wasted Textiles. Although most studies that use the method have an environmental viewpoint, it can also be used to examine other perspectives. One example is the project BELONG, which examines children’s sense of belonging through their relationship to people, places and to their possessions. You can read more about the project here: Practices and policies of belonging among minority and majority children of low-income families (BELONG) – OsloMet. Overall, this presentation will give you an insight into the method and its rich potential in gathering knowledge about clothing and us, their wearers.

11.00 – Dr Anna-Mari Almila (independent scholar) – Older Men’s Wardrobes

11.20 – Dr Else Skjold, (Royal Danish Academy, Copenhagen, Head of Fashion, Clothing and Textile; New Landscapes for Change) – Wardrobe Studies and Pedagogy

11.40 – Dr Liudmila Alebieva (Editor Russian Fashion Theory, Higher School of Economics, Moscow) – Curating Wardrobes

12.00 – Dr Valerie Wilson Trower (London College of Fashion) – Expatriate western women’s wardrobes: Hong Kong, 1960 – 1997.

12.20 – Sharon Williams (WSA) –Wardrobes at WSA

12.40 – questions and round-up

#WSAFashionTalks

#ClothingCultures

Klick here to watch the recording of the event (donkeydave.co.uk).

Product lifetime in European and Norwegian policies

Lisbeth Løvbak Berg on 8. September 2021

Nina Heidenstrøm, Pål Strandbakken, Vilde Haugrønning and Kirsi Laitala

Abstract

The objective in this report is to better understand how the increased product lifetime option has been positioned in policies over
the past twenty years. By means of policy document analysis, we explore product lifetime positioning in the EU’s circular economy
policies, Norwegian political party programs and official documents, environmental NGO documents, consumer organisation policies
and product policies. Overall, we find little focus on product lifetime between 2000-2015, however, there has been a massive
increase over the past five years. There is still a long way to go in developing appropriate policy instruments to address product
lifetime.

Click here to find the full report (oda.oslomet.no).

WOOLUME: Mapping the market for acoustic and sound absorbing products made of wool

Lisbeth Løvbak Berg on 9. June 2021

Anna Schytte Sigaard and Vilde Haugrønning

Abstract

This report is the first deliverable from work package 2 of the WOOLUME project. The main goal of WOOLUME is to explore different ways of using wool from Polish Mountain Sheep to achieve better utilisation of resources and value creation. The aim of the report has been to map the market for acoustic and sound absorbing products made of wool to examine the potential to introduce coarse wool as a material. This has been done through desktop research and interviews with a focus on the qualities of wool as a natural product. Findings show that though man-made materials dominate the market for acoustic products due to lower prices, wool is preferred as a material due to its natural properties as well as aesthetics. Producers using wool consider their products to be high-end, intended for people who want very good quality products and who are willing to pay a higher price to achieve this. However, few producers use coarse wool in these products, and many are made of pure Merino wool. Using Merino wool which is often considered of very fine quality due to the low micron-count does not correspond with the ideal of good utilisation of resources. Therefore, we are proposing to utilise coarse wool which today is discarded as a mere by-product to meat-production.
Merino could instead be used for products where fineness and softness are important factors such as for clothing. In addition, we argue for the rawness and uniqueness of the look of coarse wool as positive in terms of aesthetics and as something that adds to the position of acoustic products made of wool as high-end.

Click here to read the full report (oda.oslomet.no).

KRUS final report: Enhancing local value chains in Norway

ingridha on 9. September 2019

Ingun Grimstad Klepp, Tone Skårdal Tobiasson, Vilde Haugrønning, Gunnar Vittersø, Lise Grøva, Torhild Kvingedal, Ingvild Espelien & Elin Kubberød

From its initiation in 2015 to the end in 2019, KRUS had two goals: to improve the market for and the value of Norwegian wool, and survey the opportunities for local production in a move towards a goal of sustainability in the fashion sector. On a larger scale, KRUS has looked at how we can re-establish an understanding of the connection between the raw material and the finished product within the textile industry and among consumers. It is critical to understand this connection, both to ensure quality products and to reach the market potential for Norwegian wool.

To restore the understanding of “where clothes come from” is also at the heart of challenges currently facing the textile industry. The consumption and production of textiles faces major challenges and changes in the future. Today the industry is characterized by low control and little knowledge, while growth in quantity, environmental impact, as well as stress on animals and humans is high. KRUS has contributed to the debate on sustainable clothing by focusing on local value-chains and locally produced apparel.

The focus on Norwegian wool and the specific qualities of the different breeds has played an essential role for Norwegian textile tradition and dress culture, and a better understanding of this has been essential to the project. An important challenge for Norwegian wool is that it has not been marketed with any kind of label of origin. Private actors have thus entered the field and developed their own private labels for Norwegian wool. In addition, there are few products on the market containing Norwegian wool beyond hand-knitting yarn, which means that availability has been limited.

Throughout the project, we have seen a shift, especially for older sheep breeds, which have posed a special challenge. Their wool is central in keeping Norwegian handicrafts alive, but the quality on some of the wool types has been declining. For others, the challenge is that much of the wool is not taken care of, and constitutes a waste problem. Through breeding-projects, work collaboration, looking closely at labelling systems and business models, KRUS has addressed these challenges.

Click here to read the full report (oda.oslomet.no)