Abstract
Mending, re-design, and altering are alternatives for prolonging the use period of clothing. It is a common assumption that nobody mends clothing anymore in Western societies. This paper studies Norwegian consumers’ clothing mending and making practices. We ask how common the different mending and making activities are, has this changed during the past several years, who are the clothing menders and makers, and further, are these practices related to consumers’ environmental opinions? We build on three quantitative surveys in Norway from 2010, 2011, and 2017. Many consumers do mend their clothing at least occasionally, especially the simpler tasks, such as sewing on a button and fixing an unravelled seam. Women and the elderly are more active in making and mending, whereas the young are bit more likely to make something new out of old clothing. The mending activities were correlated with respondents’ environmental opinions. Mending clothes is more common than is usually assumed. Knowledge of current practices and barriers for clothing mending enables us to recommend measures that can potentially increase the use time of clothing. These results can be beneficial in clothing design, home economics, and crafts education as well as understanding consumer behavior and making policies that aim at environmental improvements within clothing consumption.
Highlights
Mending, re-design, and altering are some of the alternatives users have for prolonging the use period of clothing that is damaged, does not fit, or is not used for aesthetical reasons [1,2]
Our study includes sewing and knitting, which are techniques that can be used for either mending and altering existing textile items or making new textile items. These activities are here divided into three main categories, mending, altering, and making
The surveys were based on different projects, so they have some differences in topics and sample selection, but they repeated some of the same questions related to clothing mending and making
Summary
Re-design, and altering are some of the alternatives users have for prolonging the use period of clothing that is damaged, does not fit, or is not used for aesthetical reasons [1,2]. “repairs to clothing are no longer undertaken as a normal, regular activity due to a lack of skills and equipment at home and the cost of professional repair and alterations services compared to the price of new clothes”. This statement is based on what consumers said in interviews, but does not document the actual change in activity level. Garments that are no longer in use, can be given a new life either by changing their form (repair, alteration, or re-design) [10], changing the user (second-hand sales, hand-me-downs, borrowing, etc.) [11], or by changing the garment’s function, i.e., repurposing it to a new use area. All respondents were 15 or older. 2 All respondents were 18 or older 3 Figure applies to the population above the age of 18
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