The Fashion Stitch – On Fabrics, Facts and Feelings

Meaningful Dressing: How Can We Rethink Our Relationship with Clothes?

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🎙️ The Fashion Stitch – On Fabrics, Facts and Feelings

Episode 6: Meaningful Dressing – How Can We Rethink Our Relationship with Clothes?

We’re surrounded by clothes — yet often feel strangely disconnected from them.

So what would it mean to dress with meaning instead of consuming on autopilot?

💡 We explore the creative, emotional and systemic alternatives to fast fashion habits:

  • Why we shop to fill an emotional void — and why buying less can increase wellbeing
  • Secondhand, rental & clothing libraries: access over ownership in practice
  • How circular models like Kleiderei build community instead of waste
  • Repair, upcycling & emotional durability as acts of creativity and care
  • Fashion as shared resource — not individual possession
  • Why changing mindset may be more powerful than changing items
    • 👥 Featuring
    • Hedda Roberts – Project Coordinator, Hot or Cool Institute, on fair consumption space & emotional wellbeing
    • Maria Schorn – Franchise Partner and Owner, Kleiderei Freiburg, on clothing libraries & access-based fashion
    • Ian Berry – Denim Artist, on creativity & teaching the next generation through reuse
      • 🔑 Topics we cover
      • Consumption vs. fulfilment — a psychological reframing
      • Sharing economies & why ownership is becoming outdated
      • Emotional value and the life of a garment beyond first use
      • Waste colonialism & responsibility at the end of life
      • Renting, repairing, rediscovering — joy beyond “new”
        • 📌 Sources and further reading
        • Overconsumption and the Effects on Mental Health and Well-Being: A Review (2023)
        • Happiness and thrift: When (spending) less is (hedonically) more (2011)
        • What the Kantamanto Market fire means for sustainable fashion (2025)
        • Sojo: The Deliveroo of fashion repairs (2021)
        • Reducing without losing: Reduced consumption and its implications for well-being (2024)
        • Hot or Cool Institute Report: Unfit, Unfair, Unfashionable – Resizing Fashion for a Fair Consumption Space (2022)
        • Kleiderei
        • Ian Berry
          • 💌 Want to dive deeper?

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          🎧 Credits

          The Fashion Stitch is brought to you by OEKO-TEX® in partnership with Fashion Changers.

          Concept & Script: Vreni Jäckle and Nina Lorenzen

          Editorial: Vreni Jäckle
          Cover Design: Vreni Jäckle
          Host: Clare Press
          Production & Sound Design: Studio Tongoetze

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          The Fashion Stitch – On Fabrics, Facts and FeelingsBy OEKO-TEX Service GmbH & Fashion Changers