Clothing design for promoting sustainable use

Abstract

Many life cycle assessment studies document that the most resource demanding phase during the clothing life cycle is the use period. This paper discusses how to reduce the environmental impacts of clothing use by improved design. Complete systems thinking is required, evaluating contributions by all the actors in the clothes’ life cycle chain. The use phase should not merely be the consumers’ responsibility. Instead, this should be shared and taken into account already in the design and production phase. The improved design could lead to better quality products that also promote more sustainable use, for example by having longer use periods and broader use areas. The design should meet social challenges such as fear of stigmatisation due to using the same clothes several days in a row, or profuse anxiety of body odours, which both may lead to redundant laundering. Some design solutions may involve just providing information, putting the user in control, other design directions may focus on making undesirable behaviour impossible. The analysis is based on a quantitative consumer survey and qualitative interviews of a strategic selection of households in order to investigate the motives behind clothing disposal, acquisition practices and maintenance habits. From these households, all clothing that would have been disposed has been collected and subsequently analysed in a textile laboratory. This way, information on both the social and technical aspects of disposal has been obtained.