International Journal of Sustainable Fashion & Textiles - Current Issue

Despite a growing engagement in design strategies for longevity and circular business models (CBMs) such as resale, volumes of underutilized garments keep increasing at an accelerated pace. Within research, there is a lack of empirical validation of what actually takes place as garments enter the secondary market, as well as how the product journey of garments in situated contexts, such as local resale environments, is shaped. Therefore, this article presents an empirical follow-the-garment exploration comprised by (n)ethnographic data from two pilot studies and an ongoing Ph.D. project. With a point of departure in selected resale environments and focusing on the two Danish fashion brands GANNI and Baum und Pferdgarten (BuF), the article inquires selected examples of resale mechanisms that partake in the ongoing configuration of garment trajectories and emerge as vital co-creative powers in bringing longevity into being – or failing to do so. Combining empirical data with new materialist approaches that situate agency as a hybrid and distributed concept, the article delineates garment lifespans as inherently entangled in and dependent upon multiple agential matters. Arguing that product journeys cannot be predetermined, the article proposes a critique of design- and garment-centric longevity strategies that exaggerate the abilities of designers to control garment lifespans beyond the design stage. While having a narrow time–space horizon and a limited focus on two specific case brands, the article acts as a reflective comment that could have broader implications for perceptions of CBMs and design strategies for longevity in a fashion and textiles context.

As the most significant portion of a garment’s ecological footprint stems from its use, clothing users play a pivotal role in extending the clothing lifespan by way of their wear, care and repair habits. Despite the fashion industry’s slow progress towards sustainability, clothing users have autonomy to shape their practice, which holds promise for reducing environmental impacts. There is a need to explore more critically various practices such as wear, care and repair habits that contribute to longevity within the consumer’s sphere of influence. Likewise, there is a need to transform educational perspectives in the field of sustainable consumption, as increased knowledge alone has been found insufficient to drive behavioural change. This study investigates the impact of short-term behavioural modification challenges (the ‘short game’) on users’ long-term consumption behaviour (the ‘long game’). Through a case study involving young female university students, this study characterizes the implementation of a lifestyle change towards sustainable clothing use practice and highlights its effects on long-term behaviour. This case illustrates an educational intervention that employed cognitive (head), affective (heart) and practical (hands) learning activities to advance specific competencies associated with sustainable consumption in the context of clothing use behaviours. The study provides a window into the logistical challenges, emotional longings and social pressures that young consumers must invariably reconcile to remain motivated and persist in the ‘long game’ of clothing longevity. By focusing learners’ attention on clothing use behaviours and providing some supportive conditions, young consumers can make meaningful and lasting changes to their practice.

Globally, the volume of clothing waste is now catastrophic in scale. Further, the manufacturing sector of fast fashion garments will soon produce over 100 billion garments per year. Fast fashion promotes wastefulness – during clothing production, laundering and the quick discard of used and even new clothing to landfills throughout the world. This article presents a model for the mechanism of repair to become activated as ‘urgent’ and ‘important’. Firstly, repair can be activated by the vector of trauma. Urgency comes through the exigencies of two life experiences, when trauma follows natural disaster and/or climate change. As summarized in the section on the environmental costs from fashion overproduction, natural disasters and climate change have impacted severely on global communities. In addition, trauma occurs when people’s lives are ‘disenfranchised’ outside the norms of social well-being. These marginal communities include refugees, migrant workers, trafficked slaves, prisoners and discrimination by race, colour, gender, sexual identity, religion and more. Secondly, repair can be activated through the vector of value. Clothing is cherished and repaired because of initial cost, sentimentality and family history. Here clothing encapsulates a process of nostalgia; from a mindset of ‘casting back’ where garments are indelibly linked to memories. This conceptual model for ‘repairing’ repair is not lightly proposed. Complications can arise when repair is delegated to ‘women’s work’ that undermines feminist theories. A model can be useful, but the key to any model’s efficacy is its application to real-world activities. Fast fashion further relocates clothing to static objects, as photos viewed quickly on social media. It is postulated here that this analysis of repair as urgent and important, when driven by vectors of trauma and value offers a re-evaluation of how to relocate repair as a vital pathway to lessen global fast fashion overproduction and overconsumption.

The rise of fast fashion as a feature of post-industrial societies has distanced people from many of the habitual practices associated with caring for and valuing clothes. This includes both acquiring and applying the skills to make and mend clothes and understanding fibres and fabrics to develop deeper connections to materials. The principles advocated by a circular economy (CE) require societies to recover these once held values and restore our relationship with materials and practices to keep clothing in use for as long as possible and to reduce consumption. Such CE practices will require our societies to align with current socio-technical developments, where people are increasingly adopting technologies (through e.g. applications, tutorials), to support making and mending practices, and to play and express themselves creatively whilst keeping apparel in use. The study aims to examine self-repair practices and repair services from practitioners’ viewpoints, evaluating available support, and identifying challenges and opportunities to integrate repair practices more widely in society. The results suggest it is critical to develop the skills to mend and customize the garments people own and provide additional support for people to become custodians of clothes. This study is part of a larger project to identify opportunities where technology could intervene in a repair process and facilitate opportunities for people to reconnect with materials and acquire repair skills. To develop this idea, we designed an interview study to investigate practices of clothing repair to determine if and where such support might be welcomed. Researchers conducted interviews with three groups of people – brands, repair practitioners and community initiatives to gather insights into repair practices, core competences, techniques, tools and community structures involved in extending the life of garments. Insights from the findings address some of the underexplored areas of a clothes repair practice across the three settings. We identify the important relationship of material knowledge to repair and the limited attention given to different types of repair tools and their application. As material skills and knowledge diminish across society it can undermine the drive to scale-up the practice of repair. Knowledge from the findings will inform further research to map the repair process and break it down into stages to identify opportunities where digital tools could intervene to help facilitate aspects of the process for people across different settings.

This article explores how designers in textiles and clothing can use their skills in materials and aesthetics to change perceptions of garments when they show signs of wear. Beyond prolonging clothing lifespan, garment repair can serve as a bottom-up approach to alter clothing culture through innovative creativity. With this article, I substantiate the discussion of mending as an alternative avenue that can echo another aesthetic within the realm of fashion. A growing body of research is occupied with how garment repair can create resilience in the textile and clothing industry by influencing the use phase. This has given rise to studies on garment design from a ‘repair thinking’ perspective, where mending is integrated into the design phase, prompting innovative approaches to garment construction, product types, and business models to rebalance the fashion industry. However, extending garment life through mending is complex, influenced by systemic and social factors, often overshadowed by the polished image of fashion. Within this scope, aesthetic and material expressions of mending are still to be researched. Designers possess skills in working with aesthetics, such as material qualities, visual expressions, textures, colours and patterns. This article explores how these skills illuminate the socio-material dimensions of garment mending. The research includes three encounters with mending which has resulted in a range of full-garment samples and insights into related material processes. The preliminary findings are visualized in a spectrum of mending concepts. Drawing from this overview of material expressions, the article discusses the role of designers in a world undergoing sustainable climate transformation. It presents three case examples showcasing how textile and clothing designers can employ their skills in materials and aesthetics. The article concludes by considering how future research could involve collaboration with companies to introduce mending concepts as part of a broader appreciation of material expression.