Orchestrating Circular Fashion Practices: Materials, Meanings and Competences Across Physical and Digital Retail
(2026) SMMP40 20261Department of Service Studies
- Abstract
- This thesis examines how circular fashion services are made practically possible across physical and digital retail touchpoints. While circular retailing is often discussed as a strategic response to fashion’s sustainability problem, the availability of services such as repair, resale, care, and take-back does not automatically lead to participation. Drawing on social practice theory and the materials–meanings–competences framework, the study shifts attention from consumer attitudes to the socio-material configurations through which circular participation becomes visible, legible, doable, and potentially stabilised. Empirically, the thesis adopts a qualitative multiple-case study of three Swedish fashion retailers: Nudie Jeans, Houdini... (More)
- This thesis examines how circular fashion services are made practically possible across physical and digital retail touchpoints. While circular retailing is often discussed as a strategic response to fashion’s sustainability problem, the availability of services such as repair, resale, care, and take-back does not automatically lead to participation. Drawing on social practice theory and the materials–meanings–competences framework, the study shifts attention from consumer attitudes to the socio-material configurations through which circular participation becomes visible, legible, doable, and potentially stabilised. Empirically, the thesis adopts a qualitative multiple-case study of three Swedish fashion retailers: Nudie Jeans, Houdini Sportswear, and Asket. The analysis combines physical walk-through observations, digital observations, document analysis, and netnographic material.
The findings show that circular fashion is not organised as a single uniform practice. Nudie Jeans stages a repair-centred configuration through visible infrastructures, routinised service scripts, and outcome displays. Houdini Sportswear foregrounds care and maintenance within a broader ecology of repair, reuse, rental, and product longevity. Asket configures circularity more quietly, relying more heavily on digital procedures, staff mediation, and consumer initiative. Across the cases, circular participation becomes more stable when retailers reduce search costs, clarify procedures, distribute competences, and attach meanings of care, durability, and continued use to garments. The thesis contributes to circular retailing research by conceptualising retailers not merely as providers of circular services, but as configurators of the practical conditions through which circular fashion can be repeatedly enacted. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9233473
- author
- Bi, Zhanbo LU and Guo, Ziyu LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- SMMP40 20261
- year
- 2026
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- Circular fashion, circular retailing, social practice theory, materials–meanings–competences, retail touchpoints, sustainable consumption.
- language
- English
- id
- 9233473
- date added to LUP
- 2026-06-10 09:01:44
- date last changed
- 2026-06-10 09:01:44
@misc{9233473,
abstract = {{This thesis examines how circular fashion services are made practically possible across physical and digital retail touchpoints. While circular retailing is often discussed as a strategic response to fashion’s sustainability problem, the availability of services such as repair, resale, care, and take-back does not automatically lead to participation. Drawing on social practice theory and the materials–meanings–competences framework, the study shifts attention from consumer attitudes to the socio-material configurations through which circular participation becomes visible, legible, doable, and potentially stabilised. Empirically, the thesis adopts a qualitative multiple-case study of three Swedish fashion retailers: Nudie Jeans, Houdini Sportswear, and Asket. The analysis combines physical walk-through observations, digital observations, document analysis, and netnographic material.
The findings show that circular fashion is not organised as a single uniform practice. Nudie Jeans stages a repair-centred configuration through visible infrastructures, routinised service scripts, and outcome displays. Houdini Sportswear foregrounds care and maintenance within a broader ecology of repair, reuse, rental, and product longevity. Asket configures circularity more quietly, relying more heavily on digital procedures, staff mediation, and consumer initiative. Across the cases, circular participation becomes more stable when retailers reduce search costs, clarify procedures, distribute competences, and attach meanings of care, durability, and continued use to garments. The thesis contributes to circular retailing research by conceptualising retailers not merely as providers of circular services, but as configurators of the practical conditions through which circular fashion can be repeatedly enacted.}},
author = {{Bi, Zhanbo and Guo, Ziyu}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Orchestrating Circular Fashion Practices: Materials, Meanings and Competences Across Physical and Digital Retail}},
year = {{2026}},
}