Repurpose

It’s no secret that the textile industry is one of the most polluting in the world. With Repurpose, fashion enthusiasts can fall in love with their own clothes again and prevent overconsumption. Empower Your Wardrobe, Protect Our Planet.

Problem - Why fashion sustainability?

With different fashion trends popping up everyday, the lifespan of clothing is decreasing. The affordability and accessibility of fast fashion has made it convenient for individuals to dispose and replace clothing, contributing to the increasing amount of textile waste in landfills.

Solution - What is Repurpose?

Repurpose is a virtual closet app that helps you style the clothes you own, find information on how to maintain them, and provides you with sustainable options when you’re done with it. The goal of the app is to help you find value in your own items, find inspiration from your network, and connect you with resources on how to extend the lifetime of your clothing items.

Outcome

A high fidelity prototype was developed for the University of Toronto x RBC Innovation Challenge to demonstrate the main features.

View Clickable Prototype

Role

UX Researcher
Visual / Brand Design
UI Design
Conducted Usability Test

Project Duration

Oct 2022 - Jan 2023

Team Members

Emerging UX Designers:
Kendra Dizon
Christy Chan

Tools Used

Miro
Figma

Research Problem Ideate Prototype Final Personal Takeaway Back to Top

Research

Secondary Research - What do we know about consumption of fashion?

The increase of affordable and trendy clothes has led to a culture of disposable fashion, which has led to the rising amount of textile waste in landfills.

"It is estimated that 10.5 million tonnes of clothes and textiles in North America are lost to disposal every year."

Source

With so much clothing being disposed of each year, we wanted to delve deeper into the issue by examining the statistics on consumer behaviour and consumption habits. Here's what we found...

From March 2020 to 2022, there was a

568%

increase in fast fashion giant's, Shein, clothing sales

Source

Canadians purchase an average of

70

new articles of clothing each year

Source

In a study on 18,000 people in 20 countries,

79%

of wardrobes in Canadian households are unused

Source

This data affirms that there is a growing trend of excessive consumption in the fashion industry. With these insights, we wanted to explore the motivations, barriers, and beliefs of consumers when purchasing clothing.

Primary Research - What matters to consumers when making fashion purchases?

Our primary research aims to answer the following three questions:

What are the current practices of consumers when purchasing clothing?
What are the motivations behind consumers' choices when purchasing clothing?
What alternatives to fast fashion do consumers practice?
What barriers do people face when practicing any of the alternatives to fast fashion?

We first conducted a questionnaire study to obtain diverse and scalable data about fashion purchasing patterns of young people between the ages of 18 – 30. Out of 92 survey respondents,

90%

purchase fast fashion for the price

70%

hand down their clothes to friends and family

68%

invest in timeless and good quality pieces as an alternative to fast fashion

We then conducted 5 semi-structured interviews to gain a deeper understanding of the obstacles people face when adopting alternative fashion practices, and the motivations behind these decisions. Here's what we found...

Participants expressed feeling that they lack the knowledge to make informed decisions about sustainable retailers.

“I'm just not well-informed enough to know which brands are sustainable and which ones aren't.”

Due to a perceived lack of knowledge, participants shared that they try to make better use of their existing wardrobe as a sustainable practice.

“What I'm trying to do is just make better use of the clothes I have now as opposed to supplementing more.”

Therefore, in an effort to minimize their fashion consumption, participants reported investing in high-quality clothing items that will last them a long time.

“Ideally, I want to buy things that I think will last a long time.”

From our primary and secondary research, we now understand that users need a way to increase the average number of times their clothes are worn to reduce overconsumption.

Problem Statement

How might we help users extend the lifetime of their clothing pieces?

Ideate

The idea

We wanted our app to encompass the entire journey of clothing ownership, from the moment we acquire it to the day we pass it on. An app that focuses not just on styling clothes, but also on the care and sustainable repurposing of clothing, leading to a more mindful approach to clothing ownership.

Creating the user flow

We created a user flow diagram to visualize the steps and interactions a user would take to add clothing pieces, plan and create outfits, access resources for clothing care, and learn sustainable disposal methods. It helped us to clearly define the user's journey and ensure a smooth and intuitive experience.

Prototype

Medium Fidelity Wireframes

We started our design process by creating medium fidelity wireframes to test the interactions and flows with users. Some of the screens can be viewed below.

Usability Tests

With our medium fidelity wireframes, we conducted 3 usability tests to assess the clarity and understanding of the different features we created. We used the findings below to refine our high-fidelity wireframes.