Sustainable clothing: challenges, barriers and interventions for encouraging more sustainable consumer behaviour

Research with consumers has revealed limited awareness of the sustainability impact of clothing (Goworek et al., 2012). Semi-structured interviews conducted with a range of experts in sustainable clothing to increase understanding of the challenges for sustainable clothing revealed that a focus on sustainability alone will not drive the necessary changes in consumers’ clothing purchase, care and disposal behaviour for three reasons: (i) clothing sustainability is too complex; (ii) consumers are too diverse in their ethical concerns; and (iii) clothing is not an altruistic purchase. The findings identify the challenges that need to be addressed and the associated barriers for sustainable clothing. Interventions targeting consumers, suppliers, buyers and retailers are proposed that encourage more sustainable clothing production, purchase, care and disposal behaviour. These interventions range from normalising the design of sustainable clothing and increasing the ease of purchase, to shifting clothes washing norms and increasing upcycling, recycling and repair

DEFRA Clothing Action Plan

As part of Defra’s Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) programme, a voluntary clothing industry initiative was co-ordinated by Defra with the aim to improve the environmental and ethical performance of clothing. The Sustainable Clothing Roadmap aims to improve the environmental and social performance of clothing, building on existing initiatives and by co-ordinating action by key clothing supply chain stakeholders. Although organisations in the clothing supply chain have already taken significant steps to reduce adverse environmental and social impacts, further industry-wide co-operation and agreed commitments will enable that process to accelerate. That is the rationale behind the collaborative nature of the roadmap. The DEFRA initiative is now a WRAP (Waste Resources Action Plan) initiative. Centre for Sustainable Fashion participate on the WRAP steering group and the sub groups on design and recycling. Dilys Williams advised this report's lead author

Nature as paradigm for sustainability in the textile and apparel industry

Imagine if clothing of the future would adapt, grow, self repair and change appearance. The relationship between wearer and garment would be that of symbiosis enabled by developments in material science that produce textiles able to imitate functionalities of living organisms rather than just the properties of natural fibres. We can expect clothing of the future to host an array of new properties that may interact or integrate with the body, self maintain, reproduce and self assemble to accommodate changes in our activity and environment. Materials and structures in nature already demonstrate these functions and can indicate ways of transferring the technology into clothing. Biomimetics can operate as a platform to accommodate these future requirements and provide a new perspective in the design and assembly of clothing systems

VITON: An Image-based Virtual Try-on Network

We present an image-based VIirtual Try-On Network (VITON) without using 3D information in any form, which seamlessly transfers a desired clothing item onto the corresponding region of a person using a coarse-to-fine strategy. Conditioned upon a new clothing-agnostic yet descriptive person representation, our framework first generates a coarse synthesized image with the target clothing item overlaid on that same person in the same pose. We further enhance the initial blurry clothing area with a refinement network. The network is trained to learn how much detail to utilize from the target clothing item, and where to apply to the person in order to synthesize a photo-realistic image in which the target item deforms naturally with clear visual patterns. Experiments on our newly collected Zalando dataset demonstrate its promise in the image-based virtual try-on task over state-of-the-art generative models

A comparison of penetration and damage caused by different types of arrowheads on loose and tight fit clothing

Bows and arrows are used more for recreation, sport and hunting in the Western world and tend not to be as popular a weapon as firearms or knives. Yet there are still injuries and fatalities caused by these low-velocity weapons due to their availability to the public and that a licence is not required to own them. This study aimed to highlight the penetration capabilities of aluminium arrows into soft tissue and bones in the presence of clothing. Further from that, how the type and fit of clothing as well as arrowhead type contribute to penetration capacity. In this study ballistic gelatine blocks (non-clothed and loose fit or tight fit clothed) were shot using a 24 lb weight draw recurve bow and aluminium arrows accompanied by four different arrowheads (bullet, judo, blunt and broadhead).The penetration capability of aluminium arrows was examined, and the depth of penetration was found to be dependent on the type of arrowhead used as well as by the type and fit or lack thereof of the clothing covering the block. Loose fit clothing reduced penetration with half of the samples, reducing penetration capacity by percentages between 0% and 98.33%, at a range of 10 m. While the remaining half of the samples covered with tight clothing led to reductions in penetration of between 14.06% and 94.12%.The damage to the clothing and the gelatine (puncturing, cutting and tearing) was affected by the shape of the arrowhead, with the least damaged caused by the blunt arrowheads and the most by the broadhead arrows. Clothing fibres were also at times found within the projectile tract within the gelatine showing potential for subsequent infection of an individual with an arrow wound.Ribs, femur bones and spinal columns encased in some of the gelatine blocks all showed varying levels of damage, with the most and obvious damage being exhibited by the ribs and spinal column.The information gleaned from the damage to clothing, gelatine blocks and bones could potentially be useful for forensic investigators, for example, when a body has been discovered with no weapons or gunshot residue present

Liberalising Trade in Textiles and Clothing: A Survey of Quantitative Studies

There is a considerable body of analysis available that aims to quantify the economic and trade effects of textile and clothing market liberalisation. A number of analysts at national and international institutions have provided their assessments. Different tools and approaches have thereby been used to evaluate the impacts of textile trade reform at the regional or global level. Given the economic importance of the textile and clothing sector in some OECD and non-OECD countries and the resulting economy-wide repercussions that changes in the scale and pattern of textile production will tend to trigger, analysis using general equilibrium models has been dominant. The modelling results consistently indicate considerable shifts in textiles and clothing production and trade as the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC) is implemented. There is pressure for a large-scale reallocation of resources, with production of textiles and clothing expanding in Asian and other developing countries. In parallel, textiles and clothing production in industrialised countries is expected to contract significantly, while imports of textiles and clothing from developing countries increase. Concerning further regional integration, which has played a major role in textiles and clothing trade during the 1990s, the modelling results predict welfare benefits for the participating countries, while trade diversion is expected to adversely affect outsiders. All the reviewed studies foresee increases in global welfare as a result of ATC reform. But the estimates of welfare gains show considerable variation, with expected annual global benefits ranging from $6.5 billion to$324 billion. Some studies predict ATC reform to account for up to two-thirds of all gains from the Uruguay Round, while others put the contribution of textile and clothing liberalisation at merely 5 per cent. There is similar discrepancy with respect to the distribution of welfare gains. A number of analysts see developing countries as the main beneficiaries of ATC reform, while others expect them in the aggregate to lose from the policy changes. There is also variation in the direction and magnitude of expected welfare impacts at the level of many individual developing countries.Textiles, clothing, apparel, trade, MFA, ATC, WTO

Self-contained clothing system provides protection against hazardous environments

Self-contained clothing system protects personnel against hazardous environments. The clothing has an environmental control system and a complete protection envelope consisting of an outer garment, inner garment, underwear, boots, gloves, and helmet

ROMANIAN CLOTHING INDUSTRY: EXTERNAL MARKET VS. INTERNAL MARKET

In this paper we emphasize the particularities of the clothing industry market, which requested certain processing of data from the Statistics National Institute, the Economy and Commerce Ministry and the Commerce International Organization. To this end, it was noticed that the products of the clothing industry are mainly for export. Approximately 85% of the clothing products of our country are exported Romania‟s clothing export being directed mainly to the European community‟s countries. The data presented in the paper note the decrease of total exports of the clothing industry in our country, as well as those in the European Union during this last period, which indicates a similar evolution of the Romanian specialized sector on its traditional consumption market. The export performances of the companies in the Romanian clothing industry registered a descending course during the last years, in disagreement, in our opinion, to their productive and commercial potential. In regards to the products intended by the local clothing companies for the internal market, it was noticed that they are characterized by a low sophistication degree, being extremely different in terms of price, quality and distribution circuit as compared to the products sold on international markets. The poor competitive nature of the internal market clothing companies is due both to the ineffective sales and marketing activities, as well as to the decreased financial force of the population. The remarkable and insufficiently exploited potential of the internal market was observed, while the clothing industry producers in Romania should consider its capitalization at the highest level on top of their interest. Though, this remains an extremely difficult process, considering the modest financial force of the population, combined with the aggressive penetration of the foreign products on the internal market.clothing, fast fashion, clothing exports, internal market