Care Repair
Over the past two decades, global clothing production has more than doubled, while the average lifespan of garments has halved. Extending the lifespan of clothing is one of the most effective strategies for reducing environmental impact. Strategies aimed at longevity—such as European legislation—often take a technical perspective, focusing on improving quality standards without considering the context in which clothing is used. Garments stay in circulation longer if they are worn longer by the first owner, reused by someone else, discarded less quickly, and—only as a last resort—recycled. This project focuses on extending the lifespan of clothing through care and repair, where repair is understood as both mending and altering garments. Using a design-driven, systems-oriented approach, we focus on four strategies from the R-ladder: repair, refurbish, redesign, and rethink.
Design approaches like Design for Longevity and Design for Repair assume that users will actually engage in maintenance and repair if a product is technically fixable. While care and repair behaviour partly depends on product characteristics—such as fabric quality—it is more strongly influenced by factors like emotional attachment, cultural norms, cost, and the skills or knowledge required to maintain or repair clothing.
To encourage maintenance and repair, it is crucial to understand how people relate to their clothes—and how designers and fashion brands might respond to this in order to support more sustainable behaviour. In the end, a garment’s sustainability depends on its use. Fashion brands and designers often lack insight into how clothing is used in practice. Meanwhile, local tailors and users themselves hold valuable knowledge about garment care and repair, yet this knowledge is rarely considered in the design process. This project explores how we can bring together the perspectives of users, designers, brands, and tailors to co-design solutions and systems that extend the lifespan of clothing—creating value for all players involved.
