What you expected
The wears you imagined when you chose it
Garments that know themselves
You found it again
So, what happens
to it now?
A while ago you tucked this card in a pocket and forgot about it. Here it is again, with the garment still in your hands, and a small decision waiting to be made. Take a moment before you make it.
Read the card before you read the garment
On the other side you wrote what you expected of this piece when it came to you. How long you thought you would keep it, and how many times you thought you would wear it. Hold those numbers next to what actually happened.
Most of us guess generously and wear rarely. There is no judgement in the gap, only information, and the garment in your hand is the proof of how the story really went.
What happened
The wears it actually had with you
Where does it go from here?
Five honest options. Read down until one of them fits the garment in front of you, then take the small next step it asks for.
K
Keep
You still reach for it, or you would if it were in view
Bring it back into rotation rather than back into the drawer. Hang it where you will see it, and note the one small thing, a wash, a press, a minor fix, that would make you wear it more. A garment kept with intention is the most circular outcome there is.
R
Repair
A fault is fixable and the piece is worth the effort
A mend, a new zip, a button reattached, a seam closed. If it is within your hands, do it. If it is not, a local mender or a repair cafe will often do it for very little, and the repair becomes part of the record this garment carries.
R
Repurpose
Past wearing, but the cloth itself is still good
The garment may be finished as a garment while the material has years left. Offcuts, patches, a smaller piece made from a larger one. Keeping good cloth in use is its own form of memory, carried forward into something new.
P
Pass on
Still wearable, just not by you
Resale, a friend, or donation, as long as it is genuinely good enough for someone to want. The honest test is the one from the card: would you be glad to receive it in this condition. If yes, send it on with what you know of its history.
R
Recycle
Beyond wear and beyond repair
This is the last resort, not the default, and it is where the fibres you sorted on the card matter most. A piece that is all one natural fibre can often be recovered, while a blend with synthetic is far harder, which is the quiet reason what a garment is made from decides how it can end. Find a textile recovery scheme rather than the bin.
Why a card at all
You just did by hand what a garment should be able to do for itself.
A record that travels with a piece and is there when a decision is due is the everyday form of what the emerging Digital Product Passport is reaching toward. The work behind this card asks how every garment might one day carry its own origins, repairs and afterlives, so that fashion's memory returns to the makers and wearers it belongs to, rather than being lost the moment a piece leaves the maker.
Origin · Repair · Afterlife
Follow the work
This card is one small piece of a larger project. Fleurieu Made and the FM Circular Fashion IQ Index are building the ways garments can carry verifiable records of where they came from and where they go. If you would like to follow that work, leave your email and we will keep you posted.
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