Wardrobe stories: sustainability and the everyday aesthetics of fashion consumption

ABSTRACT

Transitioning fashion towards sustainability will require changes in practices including the design, production, promotion, sale and consumption of clothing. Using data gathered through a qualitative method termed ‘wardrobe examinations’, this article examines fashion consumption through the lens of social practice theory in order to better understand how the practice of fashion consumption can become more sustainable. Through analysis of the wardrobe examinations an everyday aesthetic of dressing comes to light that includes negotiations between practicalities, emotional experiences, and the process of self-fashioning. I argue that the practice of fashion consumption is already layered and treacherous well before sustainability issues are considered, and the sustainable fashion movement – including activists, designers and retailers – must recognize and address this complexity if it hopes to fruitfully engage consumers to support a sustainable transition. I also highlight existing sustainable elements of fashion consumption that can be reinforced to aid the transition towards sustainability in the fashion sector.

KEYWORDS:

• Sustainable fashion
• ethical fashion
• fashion consumption
• social practice
• everyday fashion

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. All participants in this article have been given pseudonyms.

2. New blazers by this label retail for $500AUD.

3. The term ‘performance’ is used here following social practice theory (Shove, Pantzar, and Watson 2012), whereby the doing of the practice – in this case, consuming fashion – is referred to as ‘performance’ during the immediate act of an individual, or ‘carrier’ of the practice.

4. Aesthetics here is understood here not strictly as the visual appeal of a garment, but rather as suggested by Ben Highmore (2002), as our experiences and the form they take as both mental and sensual in nature.

5. ‘Fashion’ is also highly contested terrain. In this article I use the term to represent any form of clothing, from designer fashion to basics, following the lead of my participants.

6. The work in this article is part of a larger project that involved research with designers, retailers, activists, media and consumers to map the progress of sustainable fashion in Australia, and identify potential avenues for sustainable transitions (Heinze 2017, 2020).

7. See Table 1 for details. Ethics approval was granted for this study design through the University of Sydney Human Ethics committee, approval 2014/695.

Wardrobe examination participants

8. The fashion practice complex is oversimplified here, and can also include additional related practices such as fashion regulation, education, distribution and material development, to name a few.

9. The concept of the fashion practice complex is similar to Joanne Entwistle’s fashion assemblages (Entwistle 2014), but rather than focusing on people/actors, as ANT and assemblage work does, complexes are based on practices in alignment with social practice theory, with less emphasis on individual agency.

10. Daphne’s categorization and rationale reflects Fletcher and Tham’s ‘Lifetimes’ project on clothing rhythms, which identifies time, use and quality differences between ‘classic’, ‘basic’, and ‘fashion’ garments (see http://lifetimes.info/).

11. This research was conducted before the COVID-19 pandemic created a reliance on online shopping.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lisa Heinze

Dr. Lisa Heinze is an author, researcher and academic with expertise in incorporating sustainability into today's lifestyles. She is also one of Australia's leading authorities on sustainability in fashion and completed research with the University of Sydney, where she was a key researcher with the Sydney Environment Institute (SEI), on the state of sustainable fashion and pathways toward a sustainable fashion industry. Lisa's book, Sustainability with Style, was first published in 2012, positioning her at the forefront of the sustainable fashion movement in Australia. Some of her pro-bono work includes being a co-founder of Clean Cut, Australia's sustainable fashion council, and a committee member of Fashion Revolution in Australia.