– Care has many layers. It’s the physical act of looking after the clothes and making them last longer. It’s caring about one of your clothing items because they are special to you, a valued item. But it’s also care as in caring about something more, like the future generations or the environment. It’s interesting how caring can contribute to circularity. They are connected, both in the market and the homes, says Réka Tölg.
The first paper focuses on how companies market their clothes and clothing care products and services, and address clothing lifetimes and consumers’ role within that. It is based on digital and physical observations of how H&M, Filippa K and Nudie Jeans offer care products and services. But also, what they write on their care labels, how do they package the tiny sewing kits or what they show in Instagram posts.
– Why do they talk about caring instead of selling? I found this very interesting. These retailers have a somewhat different approach to how to take care of clothes and why. But in each case, selling care in a way is used as a strategy to sell more.
The second paper directs the attention to circular clothing consumption in households with focus on care for distant and close others. The study is part of the larger Formas-funded Sustainable Clothing Futures project, also including Emma Samsioe from the same department and Niklas Sörum from University of Borås. The team did interviews and observations, visiting the homes of their respondents, seeing their wardrobes, laundry rooms and how they cared for the garments.
– We were interested in how the clothes came into the homes, how they were treated during their “stay” and how and why they were disposed of. What we saw was that the care clothes received was connected to the care for distant and close others such as the environment and future generations or family members. Care was in different ways central to circular consumption, says Tölg.
Tölg and Fuentes found that care made the respondents repair and look after clothes even when they didn’t want to because of the effort or time it took, simply because their care for the environment or the loved ones who needed their help were more important. Tölg and Fuentes also found that sometimes the care did the opposite.
– A participant wanted to fix a skirt to make it last longer, but needed her mother’s help to do so. Her care for her mother’s time and energy were greater than her care for the garment and the environment, says Tölg.
Both papers will be featured in Reka Tölg’s doctoral thesis, which as a whole focuses on the circular consumption of clothes.
Read the papers (open access)
Selling of care offerings and the ethicalisation of consumption
