Ways of Dressing: Unearthing post-growth economies in contemporary wool communities and sharing their knowledge to reimagine how we get dressed

Internationally, research shows that consumers consider the negative socio-economic and environmental impacts of the garment industry to be issues of great importance (KPMG 2019). However, those same consumers believe that ethical clothing is inaccessible (KPMG 2019). This results in overconsumption as we continue to purchase clothing at faster rates and keep our garments for half as long, leading to more waste and breeding unethical labour standards (Remy, Speelman, Swartz 2016).

However, accessible and non extractive strategies for getting dressed exist and are being practiced globally (Fletcher 2016). My PhD will unearth non-extractive clothing systems and create space to reimagine current practices of getting dressed. Wool craft communities who knit, spin, weave, and dye with wool and other materials have been identified as uniquely engaged in practices that embrace and propagate post-growth labour structures (Thackara 2017; Thanhauser 2022).

They employ non-hierarchical structures and use production strategies that are "compatible with nurture rather than domination," of labourers and nature (Thanhauser 2022: 259). This PhD will use a curatorial method to make the non-extractive labour strategies that thrive in wool communities visible and experiment with co-inquiry to generate new knowledge. Taking a decolonial approach to fashion

studies (Jansen 2020), I will focus on the under-researched area of using our garments and 'getting dressed', rather than on finding sustainable ways to maintain current systems of rapid production and consumption. Accordingly, I will position the wool communities and consumers as 'wearers' and situate their process of getting dressed within a globalised context.

Then, I will facilitate conversations about their current practices of getting dressed and enable to wearers to collectively discover alternative strategies for non-extractive ways of using garments. Here, the wearers will investigate the overlooked action of dressing by reflecting on the wider implications it has on labourers, ecologies, and non-human creatures globally, and they will collectively generate alternative ways of getting dressed