Garment Quality and Sustainability: A User Based Approach

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Author
Connor-Crabb, Anja
Rigby, Emma
Date
2019-11-07Acceptance date
2019
Type
Article
acceptedVersion
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
ISSN
1756-9370
Embargoed until
2021-05-07
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
This paper explores the role played by female perceptions of garment quality in relation to how long clothing is kept and how it is used. It considers perceptions of quality in relation to implications for sustainability in fashion. The research involves two phases of empirical data collection conducted in the UK. The first phase draws on a subset of findings from a 12-month laundry study that surveyed the use and laundering of 32 different garments across a group of 16 women. The second phase comprises a semi-structured interview study with 13 women and focuses on exploring factors that influence garment lifetimes. The central contributions of this paper are the distinctions it makes between the immediate concepts of clothing quality that are understood as “pre-use” to those more gradually developed experiences of quality learnt “during use.” In use, garments are tied into user practices and as such become woven into the actions and experiences of everyday life. The length of time garments are worn and kept is more closely connected to how quality is experienced subjectively by the user than understood within objective industry-based definitions of quality. In relation to sustainability, this suggests new directions for understanding quality with emphasis on user behavior
Journal/conference proceeding
Fashion Practice : The Journal of Design, Creative Process & the Fashion Industry;
Citation
Connor-Crabb, A. and Rigby, E.D. (2019) 'Garment Quality and Sustainability: A User-Based Approach', Fashion Practice, 11(3), pp.346-374. https://doi.org/10.1080/17569370.2019.1662223
Description
Article published in Fashion Practice available at https://doi.org/10.1080/17569370.2019.1662223
Collections
- Metatechnicity [33]
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