By Associate Professor Else Skjold, Royal Danish Academy.
Photo: Lisbet Holten

Every stitch, every thread, and every shape of garment bears evidence of thousands of years of cultural heritage. How a person carries the body as a display of various combinations of colour, patterns and textures, or ways in which the garment reveals or covers our bodies, might be viewed as a shared language that transcends verbal communication and forms the very foundation for how we communicate. Moreover, we are all in close skin contact with textiles 24/7. The fabrics of our lives travel across the globe in and out of highly complex value chains and geopolitical landscapes. They shapeshift from extracted virgin material and into fibre and yarn and later larger woven or knitted textures. They are sown together into shapes fitted for different cultures, bodies and purposes, and undergo various periods of utilisation. And they ultimately arrive at the end station lying in a landfill in the Global South or being burned in the fashion Mordors of incineration plants.

If we as researchers wish to challenge and ultimately solve the complex geopolitical challenges of current overproduction and overconsumption of fashion and textiles, estimated to constitute the 4th largest challenge of climate and environment in the EU, we need to address all the above parameters combined. From the intimate situation of getting dressed every morning, to the agency and space for decision-making of the designer in her studio, and to larger societal matters such as economic drivers and grand cultural narratives. For doing so, there is a need for interdisciplinary research put to scale.

Mission-based research carries a potential of mitigating cross-cutting collaboration for solving grand and wicked challenges. But this type of research requires a willingness for researchers to overcome barriers of understanding and silo work between various scientific paradigms. Even more important perhaps, is a willingness of policymakers and funding agencies to acknowledge how single paradigm solutions are not going to fundamentally change current dysfunctionalities. Social sciences, humanities, and the arts, are necessary pillars of knowledge for leading and guiding green transition that are often undervalued as ‘soft’ knowledge, as compared to the ‘hard’ sciences. In the case of fashion and textiles, soft knowledge is literally vital to include and recognise to genuinely understand how a larger systems shift can take place. Narrow needle-eye approaches will not be viable - every stitch counts in the combined tapestry of transition research.