“I Still Love Them and Wear Them”—Conflict Occurrence and Management in Wearer-Clothing Relationships

Abstract

The reasons why people use their clothes for longer are complex, but essential to understand how to promote longer clothing lifetimes. We conducted an online survey with open-ended questions, asking 170 female participants to write about one of their oldest garments still in use. When analysing our qualitative data, we found that many participants reported going through some mishaps with their item, a situation which is identified in existing literature as a reason for garment disposal. Following ongoing research which compares wearer-clothing relationships with human relationships, we analysed our qualitative data in the light of theory on interpersonal relationships to understand why conflict did not lead participants to dispose of their garments. The findings suggest that the way people manage conflict with their clothes is more critical for garment longevity than the conflict per se, which is bound to happen at some point in time. This paper presents different approaches to conflict in wearer-clothing relationships and illustrates them with testimonies from our survey. We discuss our findings through relevant literature and their implications to specific strategies for garment longevity.

Unpicking the Gender Gap: Examining Socio-Demographic Factors and Repair Resources in Clothing Repair Practice

“…Research points to problems associated with some of these approaches to clothing consumption, such as the global warming impacts of the increased transportation of garments [11], or the geographic and context specific limitations of shared consumption [12]. Shared economies for clothing also face problems when natural deterioration that occurs during a garment's lifespan (e.g., fading, pilling, and holes) become unacceptable earlier within a business model of multiple users per item [13]. Consumer expectations surrounding clothing quality of shared items are often higher than what they apply to their own possessions.…”

“…In addition to consumer barriers to uptake of the shared clothing consumption model, the overall sustainability of these models has been called into question, where sharing may in fact reduce garment life [14]. Keeping clothing in active use by the original user, therefore, has the greatest potential for reducing the overall carbon footprint associated with the production, transportation, use, and disposal of garments [11,13], and was the focus of the current study.…”