Research Assistant Ecehan Aygül Gönül’s article, “When Clothes Speak: Material Agency of Fashion Objects and Disruption of Human-Centered Sustainability,” published in the Q1 journal Fashion Theory, reconsiders sustainability by treating garments as active participants in fashion consumption. Drawing on New Materialism, survey data, in-depth interviews, and a garment-alteration experiment, the study examines how material qualities, embodied memories, and affective attachments shape decisions to keep, alter, wear, or discard clothing. By moving beyond models centred solely on consumer responsibility, the article offers a relational approach to sustainability that foregrounds interactions among bodies, garments, memories, and material environments.
Research Assistant Ecehan Aygül Gönül’s article, “When Clothes Speak: Material Agency of Fashion Objects and Disruption of Human-Centered Sustainability,” was published in the Q1 journal Fashion Theory. The article contributes to current debates on sustainability by challenging conventional approaches that treat clothing primarily as passive objects shaped by consumer choice.
Bringing New Materialist theory into dialogue with fashion studies, Gönül examines how garments themselves can influence practices of keeping, wearing, altering, and discarding. The study draws on survey data, in-depth interviews, and a garment-alteration experiment to explore how material qualities such as texture, durability, bodily interaction, affective attachment, and continued presence in the wardrobe shape everyday decisions around clothing.
A central contribution of the article lies in its critique of sustainability models that place responsibility almost entirely on individual consumers. Instead, the study proposes a more relational understanding of fashion, emphasizing that consumption and disposal practices emerge through interactions between bodies, garments, memories, emotions, and material environments.
By foregrounding the agency of clothing itself, the article offers a distinctive perspective on sustainable fashion and expands existing discussions in fashion studies, material culture, and New Materialist theory. Its publication in Fashion Theory also highlights the department’s engagement with interdisciplinary research connecting fashion, sustainability, materiality, and contemporary social theory.