Ginetex, the international association for textile care labeling, has unveiled results of the 2019 European Barometer ‘The textile care label and the Europeans’, conducted with IPSOS. The survey was carried out in seven European countries: France, UK, Germany, Italy, Sweden, the Czech Republic and Spain. UKFT is the UK representative of Ginetex.
One of the major trends identified by the barometer is that Europeans like to buy clothes and pay attention to how they should take care of them. In the seven surveyed countries for instance, almost all respondents (97 per cent) had purchased at least one item of clothing in the past six months. The proportions vary between 94 per cent in Sweden and 98 per cent in Italy and Spain.
Europeans are concerned about the durability of their clothing and pay great attention to their care instructions: 70 per cent respect their textile’s label’s guidelines – a relatively stable result (+1 point) compared to the last edition of Ginetex’s barometer. On this specific subject however, answers differ quite significantly between the countries: 78 per cent of Swedes follow the care instructions, 71 per cent do so in France while only 64 per cent do so in the United Kingdom.
“This barometer milestone is rich in teachings for our profession. Durability of clothing is at the heart of Europeans’ interests, who wish to keep their garments for as long as possible. Europeans – with disparity – find the label instructions very useful and have a high level of trust in their textiles’ care labels,” said Michael Hillmose, President of Ginetex.
This study was carried out with a sample of 1000 people aged 18 to 65 in each of the 7 countries (a total of 7,000 people) from France, Germany, the Czech Republic, UK, Sweden, Italy and Spain. The study was conducted online from November 21-27, 2018 in France and from June 21-July 5, 2019, in Germany, the Czech Republic, UK, Sweden, Italy and Spain.
