A renowned online label company has made it’s survey public recently reporting that over 56% of people actually do not understand the symbols on clothing care labels. This result is also directly damaging to the environment, with clothing being damaged and wasted due to the lack of understanding the clothing labels. Recently we wrote about the problem even on our DESIGN SCENE magazine pages.
While globally the population has turned into a massively consumer oriented society, encouraged by the fashion industry, naturally acquiring new clothing is thrilling, however the problems already arises before the first was. With too many symbols on the clothing labels, majority of us are confused. The symbols seemingly do not guide the shopper to advise what to actually do before the first was, that is when 56% of people are not sure on what the care symbols mean.
The research is work of Data Label, an online label company which made sore to explore why people find the instructions given by symbols on clothing tags so hard to understand. They questions over 500 people in the UK, simply inquiring: “Do you find the symbols on clothing care labels to be confusing?”
Of the 500 people that were asked 56% said they find them hard to understand, 24% declared a resounding yes stating that they do not understand the symbols, what’s worse 32% was frank about occasionally getting confused by the symbols.
Bear in mind that there are at minimum 22 basic symbols alone to do with washing, hand washing, ironing, tumble drying and dry cleaning an item of clothing, it’s not surprising that over half the people questioned can feel perplexed by them. Furthermore, the participants admitted that they have disposed or simply never worn an item of clothing because they’d washed that piece incorrectly and destroyed it or were afraid of putting it into the wash and rendering it unwearable:
Mr Philip Carlyn at Data Label shared with BEAUTYSCENE: “I wasn’t surprised to see that other people are as confused as we are by clothing care labels. Who hasn’t put an item of clothing to wash, only to find out when unloading the machine that the colour has run or that it’s half the size it used to be? If only the symbols on clothing were more similar to the instruction they were trying to advise or if it simply stated in words any specific care advice, many items of clothing might be safer!”
