Biographical Wardrobes—A Temporal View on Dress Practice

Abstract

Much "Fashion thinking" is concerned with the new, the trend leading and the spectacular. Hence, much debate and theorization within this area of research focuses on fashion as a generic, institutionalized and ritualized system that continuously produces and disseminates new trends and ideals. A large body of knowledge has been developed that aims to comprehend how fashion trends emerge and connect to society and subsequently get promoted by a system of trend agencies, fashion designers, or fashion editors. In contrast to this line of thinking, other areas of research have been looking the opposite way for the last few decades, namely at the down-to-earth everyday routines of people-what is often referred to as the ordinary. In line with the development of practice theory, the area of design research has produced increasing inquiries with regard to the way people's daily practices are intertwined with time, space and objects. This paper represents a view on dress practice building on this view, with a particular focus on the issue of temporality. Based on her concept 'the biographical wardrobe' the author points to alternative understandings of dress practice that highlight how continuity rather than newness plays a vital role in the self-understanding of individual users.

Understanding consumer lock-in mechanisms towards clothing libraries: A practice-based analysis coupled with the multi-level perspective

“…A quick glance over the SPT literature shows that this problem still holds true to some extent. More particularly, practice-based studies dealing with the consumption of clothes (see Camacho-Otero et al, 2019;Skjold, 2016;Nairn and Spotswood, 2015;Klepp and Bjerck, 2014) seem to only resort to a partial use of the SPT as a method of field analysis. Despite citing seminal authors (such as Schatzki, Reckwitz, Shove, Panzar, Walker or Warde), these studies mostly rely on a broad understanding of the SPT building on the practice as entity construct.…”

“…Bearing this in mind, there is a need for an in-depth study of the factors that contribute to the perpetuation of these practices and prevent them from changing. As the consumption of fastfashioned clothes is indeed widespread in Western populations (Volonté, 2019), it seems necessary to study it from the perspective of social practices (see Camacho-Otero et al, 2019;Thornquist, 2018;Skjold, 2016;Nairn and Spotswood, 2015;Klepp and Bjerck 2014). Furthermore, there are "few studies exploring why people would engage or not in practices that help slow and narrow material flows using this theoretical approach" (Camacho-Otero et al, 2019, p. 280).…”

How to design out obsolescence in fashion? - exploring wardrobe studies as strategy in design education

“…Research, in this field has shown, that while companies churn out new products at certain intervals in a linear manner, the way people manage, organise, buy and discard their clothes are non-linear and complex. In fact, whilst people may be influenced by trends, the main drivers for using, keeping or discarding clothes items are personal (Klepp & Bjerck, 2012;Fletcher, 2016;Skjold, 2016;Fletcher & Klepp, 2017). This paper first explores examples of how these methods impact the design process, the design outcome and the designer role when applied in practice.…”

Textiles as Material Gestalt: Cloth as a Catalyst in the Co-designing Process

“…A set of open-ended topics included: how the participants understood the concept of "fashion" and how they defined it; their past and present relationship with fashion, how it has changed over time; their perfect fashion item; their least favourite item; and, their clothing/dressing/wearing practices and habits. Probes and prompts were used to encourage elaboration on their "biographical wardrobes" (Skjold 2016).…”