Wardrobe studies library Archives - Page 2 of 2

Irene Maldini – Comparative study of personalized and ready-made wardrobes in the Netherlands

ingridha on 13. September 2023

Irene Maldini, at the time (2017/2018) affiliated to the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences as a PhD candidate. Background in industrial design, design for sustainability, design history and theory.

Picture showing the shared wardrobe of respondents 14A (left) and 15A (right), both users of custom-made clothing. — Shared wardrobe of respondents 14A (left) and 15A (right), both users of custom-made clothing.

Aim of the study: scientific knowledge creation

Definition of terms:

Personalised garments: garments involving the user in their design, and being produced on demand (resulting from bespoke tailoring, made-to-measure, mass customization, home or self-production and do-it-yourself)
Ready-made garments: garments produced without user input
Personalised wardrobes: Wardrobes including at least ten personalised garments
Ready-made wardrobes: Wardrobes including only ready-made garments

Hypotheses:

Personalised wardrobes are smaller than ready-made wardrobes
Personalised wardrobes’ inflow is smaller than ready-made wardrobes’ inflow
personalised items are used more often than ready-made garments
personalised items are kept for a longer time than ready-made garments

Inspiration: Available wardrobes studies at the time including the methods in the “Opening up the wardrobe” book.

Novelty: comparative and quantitative approach.

Participants:

	Definition	Description and recruitment
Respondent group P	Subjects whose wardrobes include at least ten personalised garments (personalised wardrobes)	20 subjects recruited from our network. 10 respondents are consumers of custom-made clothing and 10 make clothes for their own use.
Respondent group R	Subjects whose wardrobes do not include personalised garments (ready-made wardrobes)	Control group. 20 subjects with similar demographic characteristics to (and mostly indicated by) participants in respondent group P.

The wardrobe studies included 40 subjects living in different provinces of the Netherlands. The group is varied in terms of age (22 to 71 years old), gender (24 females and 16 males, equally distributed in groups P and R), household composition (living alone, in couples, with children, or in shared households) and income (from <20,000 € to > 80,000 € annual gross income per household). Most of respondents live in cities, but ten subjects live in villages and towns; these are equally distributed in groups P and R.

Protocol:

Includes a complete wardrobe audit and registration of all garments coming in and out of the wardrobe in a 6-month period (the latter completed by 25 of the 40 participants). In group P, two garment types including both personalized and ready-made garments are chosen by respondents, for instance all sweaters and cardigans, or all trousers. They are requested to organise such items in 5 categories based on usage (used always, frequently, average, rarely and never) and age (old, relatively old, average, relatively new and new).

Picture showing the storage space in respondent 11B’s bedroom, including bags with clothes, which were integrated in the wardrobe study. — Storage space in respondent 11B’s bedroom, including bags with clothes, which were integrated in the wardrobe study.

Analysis:

The number of items owned by both respondent groups were statistically compared, as were the number of items coming in their wardrobes in a 6-month period. No statistical differences were found.

For the comparison of age and usage in personalised and ready-made garments (same user and garment type), the number of personalised and ready-made items in each of the five categories listed above were documented, we assigned a value to each category, and divided the total value by the number of items in the garment type (keeping personalised and ready-mades separately). Lastly, we statistically compared the resulting score for personalised and ready-mades items in the same garment type, further using data visualisation to discuss the qualitative findings.

No statistical difference was found for garment usage. For garment age, and contrary to one of the study hypotheses, the age of ready-made garments was bigger than that of the personalised garments, meaning that ready-mades were kept for longer.

Results:

None of the hypotheses of the study was confirmed, but we expected that to be the case. The hypotheses were based on the assumptions of other people in the field, and we suspected that these did not meet reality.

Unexpected finding:

The results of the inflow-outflow exercise made me realise that the whole idea of reducing the demand of clothing based on product lifetime extension did not apply in reality, because clothing consumption dynamics do not follow a logic of replacement. Keeping a garment in the wardrobe, even if it is actively used, does not stop people to purchase other items. Inflow and outflow are only sometimes and indirectly connected. This finding, which was not considered in the design of the study, has been central in my work since then.

Picture shows weaters and cardigans owned by respondent 11A (a knitter) organized according to use frequency (from used “never” to “always”). — Sweaters and cardigans owned by respondent 11A (a knitter) organized according to use frequency (from used “never” to “always”).

Development of methods since then:

Wardrobe audits (counting the number of garments owned) have been used by others before and after this study.

Methods partially based on the inflow-outflow registration are being used by Vilde Haugrønning in her PhD (which I co-supervise). Moreover, I am planning a new research project using such an approach for all consumer goods in the household. This method can give insights about clothing consumption dynamics, the relations among garments and the causes and consequences of wardrobe movements (inflow and outflow).

To my knowledge, the quantitative comparison of garments used to assess age and usage has not been further developed or used. This (more complex) method can have a variety of uses. For instance, to compare the use value of garments made of different materials or shapes. This method was developed after testing other ways of understanding garment age and use frequency that did not work. People do not remember how long they have owned things or how often they use them. However, comparing is much easier for them and they are more confident about their responses. That was a main reason to use this method, next to the possibility of analyzing the data quantitatively.

Use of results since then:

This study has been referenced by others to question the environmental value of product personalization. The limitation of durability (the secondary finding of the study) has had more repercussions, due to the importance given to product longevity in clothing environmental policy. We (OsloMet colleagues and I) have referred to this study in numerous policy briefings, reports, articles, and talks to explain why the focus needs to be placed on production volumes rather than product durability, expecting that volumes will be reduced in an indirect way.

Recommendation:

Always run a pilot of your study and analyze the results before designing the final study

This study has been key in the following publications:

Maldini, Irene, Pieter J. Stappers, Javier C. Gimeno-Martinez, and Hein A. M. Daanen. 2019. “Assessing the Impact of Design Strategies on Clothing Lifetimes, Usage and Volumes: The Case of Product Personalisation.” Journal of Cleaner Production 210:1414–24. (sciencedirect.com)

Maldini, Irene. 2019. “From Speed to Volume: Reframing Clothing Production and Consumption for an Environmentally Sound Apparel Sector.” Pp. 519–24 in 3rd Product Lifetimes and the Environment conference, edited by N. F. Nissen and M. Jaeger-Erben. Berlin: TU Berlin. (researchgate.net)

Maldini, Irene and Pieter J. Stappers. 2019. “The Wardrobe as a System: Exploring Clothing Consumption through Design Fiction.” Journal of Design Research 17(1):3–25. (researchgate.net)

Maldini, Irene, Vilde Haugrønning, and Lucrecia De León. 2023. “Studying Clothing Consumption Volumes through Wardrobe Studies: A Methodological Reflection.” Pp. 610–16 in Proceedings of the 5th PLATE conference, edited by K. Niinimäki and K. Cura. Espoo: Aalto University. (kth.diva-portal.org)

Wardrobe inventories combined with inflow and outflow of garments in 15 Norwegian households

ingridha on 12. May 2023

Vilde Haugrønning, PhD Candidate, Consumption Research Norway, Oslo Metropolitan University

My story of using wardrobe studies is based on the study I conduct as part of my PhD project, which is based in the CHANGE project. The aim of my PhD is to study how women’s and men’s clothing consumption in everyday life impact the material flow of garments in wardrobes and clothing volumes. The study is anchored in consumption studies and combines various methods that builds on the methodological approach of wardrobe studies. My project builds specifically on the hypothesis of the CHANGE project, which is that the specialisation of clothing for occasions and the expectations of variety are two aspects that are likely to have a big impact on the volume. To explore this hypothesis, the main objective is to study the constitutive elements of practice that influence clothing consumption and how this is influenced by gender.

The fieldwork is conducted in Norway and involves home visits to 15 Norwegian households with a man and a woman. Participants were recruited through various channels on social media and through personal networks. Potential participants were asked to fill out an online form and from this a sample of 15 households were selected. Since the overall perspective in this study is clothing consumption in everyday life, the participants were not recruited based on an interest in clothing or fashion, even though some had a stronger interest than others. The most important recruitment criteria were that the household consisted of a man and a woman, as the study aims to compare social constructs of gender. In addition, it was aimed to have a variety of informants in terms of age, occupation, location, and interests. The final sample consists of a variety of households from four different counties on Norway, from both urban and rural areas. Ages varies from late 20s to early 70s, some of the participants are retired, some live in houses and some in apartments, and some have children living at home.

The data collection has two phases and two visits in total to each household. The first phase involves a wardrobe inventory combined with a semi-structured interview. In this visit, two researchers, myself and my colleague Ingrid Haugsrud, are present. The participants are asked to count all the clothing they have access to, including underwear, socks and accessories but excluding shoes. The counting takes place with one participant at a time in front of their wardrobes, storage spaces or other places in the home where they store clothing. We use a template form to count the clothing based on garment categories and for each garment we ask what it is used for or what occasion it belongs to. After this, the counting form is transcribed and gives an overview of each participant’s wardrobes and its content. For example, the number of dresses for summer or number of trousers for the everyday.

The second phase starts at the end of the counting exercise, and the participants are asked to download an app that they will use to document inflow and outflow of garments for the next 6 months. This includes all the garments they acquire, make themselves or are gifted and garments that are donated or disposed of. The participants take photographs of the garments and upload them in the app, which also has a reminder function to keep them engaged. After 6 months, I conduct a final interview with the participants to talk about the garments they have documented.

The analysis and presentation of findings is yet to be done in my project, but the preliminary findings from phase 1 show that female participants have more clothing than male. By comparing the wardrobes and the different occasions attached to the garments, it is possible to see tendencies for why the women had more clothing. For example, several of the female informants have more clothing for everyday occasions and for party and formal occasions. Therefore, one of the reasons for the difference in the amount of clothing is likely to be related to the different expectations and conventions of gender roles in dressing for occasions and in varying between clothing for the same occasion.

From phase 2, I hope that the results can give insights into the dynamics of wardrobes from a volume perspective to better understand clothing quantities and the turnover rate of garments going in and out of wardrobes. For future research, I believe that doing a wardrobe study that involves a quantitative aspect, such as counting the whole or parts of the wardrobe, can give important insight to the content of wardrobes from a volume perspective. This could also be combined with a use frequency aspect, to investigate the connections between clothing quantities and the daily use of clothing.

As a final note, I would emphasise the data richness that wardrobe studies provide and the peculiarity of this way of doing field research, as people open up their wardrobes to complete strangers. There is something unique in being able to access people’s most intimate spaces through their clothing and hearing stories about good, bad and ordinary clothes.