Chapter 3 — full chapter
Chapter 3 — full chapter
3.2 Introduction
A garment is rarely made of a single material. Even a simple T-shirt combines a main fabric with sewing thread, a neck label, a care label and sometimes printed inks or coatings. A tailored jacket or an evening dress can involve a dozen different materials: shell fabric, lining, interlining, closures, threads, trims and accessories. Understanding this anatomy is the technical foundation of this chapter; It is the starting point for judging whether a product can realistically be repaired, recycled or returned safely to nature.
These material choices carry real environmental, social and economic weight. Fibre production, dyeing, finishing and trims all draw on water, energy and chemical inputs, and low-quality or unnecessary components shorten a product's useful life and complicate its recovery. Seen through a circularity and life-cycle lens, the central question is not only “what is this fibre?” but “how do all these components interact?”. A mono-material product is far easier to keep in a closed loop than a blended one, and products designed for disassembly keep more recovery options open at end-of-life.
For SMEs, material selection is where sustainability commitments become concrete. Balancing performance, cost and circularity means asking, for every component, whether it is necessary, whether it is compatible with the rest of the product, and whether a next user, repairer, sorter or recycler will be able to identify and separate it. This is increasingly not optional: regulation such as the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), the EU Textile Strategy, the Green Claims Directive and the Digital Product Passport are all converging on the same requirement that companies know, and can prove, what their products are made of (European Parliament and Council, 2024; Niinimäki et al., 2020).
A practical material review begins with a component-level bill of materials. The main fabric should be recorded alongside sewing thread, labels, linings, interlinings, fasteners, elastic, prints, coatings and adhesives. For each element, teams can document fibre or polymer type, weight, supplier, certification, function and method of attachment. This turns a general sustainability claim into information that can guide design, purchasing, quality control and future recovery. It also reveals small components that are easy to overlook but may prevent separation or contaminate a recycling stream (Sandin & Peters, 2018).
Material decisions should then be tested against the product’s intended use, service life, care conditions and recovery route. A material that performs well in isolation may create a weak system if it requires an incompatible coating, short-lived elastic or permanent adhesive. Teams should therefore assess the whole component system and its likely use and end-of-use scenarios (Niinimäki et al., 2020; Sandin & Peters, 2018).
Document the options considered, the evidence used, the assumptions made and the reasons for accepting each trade-off. Revisit the decision at sampling and supplier-review stages when verified data becomes available. This creates a traceable rationale for purchasing, product claims and future Digital Product Passport records.
The inventory should describe function as well as composition. A lining, membrane or finish may be justified by safety, weather protection or durability, while the same component in another product may add complexity without enough benefit. Define the expected service conditions first, then assess whether every component contributes to them and whether a simpler construction could meet the same need. This avoids treating mono-material design as an automatic goal when performance failure would shorten product life.
Evidence quality also matters. Supplier declarations and product-specific test reports should be distinguished from generic databases, estimates and marketing claims. Record the source, date, geography and level of confidence for each data point, and assign responsibility for resolving gaps before production approval. Consistent component identifiers make this information reusable across purchasing, compliance, care guidance and end-of-use decisions, while version control prevents obsolete specifications from entering future product records (European Parliament and Council, 2024; Finnveden et al., 2009).