This paper will draw on over 30 short interviews we have conducted with respondents from the UK, Canada, USA, Ukraine, UAE, and Ireland within our project ‘Lockdown Clothing’. The project aimed to document how people dress while under lockdown and what new meanings can be derived from their changing relationships with clothes. We will propose that in lockdown clothes take on a variety of roles, including structuring timespace, anchoring the self, and delineating the public from the private. Furthermore, we will discuss how the emerging relationships between wearers and their wardrobes might underpin more durable and sustainable fashion practices, drawing on ideas of emotional durability (Chapman 2005) and craft of use (Fletcher 2016).

Jana Melkumova-Reynolds>>
Lorraine H Smith