Abstract
<jats:p>Background: Despite growing awareness of environmental issues, younger adults often show limited engagement in practical sustainability initiatives. This study explored students’ perceptions, motivations, and behaviors regarding sustainability across the clothing lifecycle. Methods: Two complementary focus groups were conducted with 7 and 10 students, aged between 18 and 25 years old from a Portuguese higher education setting. Focus group interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis following an inductive approach, respecting emerging themes from the participant’s discourse. Re-sults: Participants expressed positive attitudes related to sustainability, despite their practices being constrained by informational, economic, and contextual barriers. The economic barrier was especially relevant for acquisition and maintenance of clothing, leading to necessary reflection on economic and environmental balance. Sustainability was perceived as a valued yet ambiguous concept, limiting its translation into action. Across the lifecycle, decisions were primarily driven by price, aesthetics, and conven-ience, with sustainability emerging as secondary. Participants also reported limited knowledge regarding care, repair, and disposal practices, alongside restricted access to sustainable alternatives. Conclusions: Findings suggest that the sustainability gap is sustained by phase-specific constraints: information and affordability at purchase, ca-pability and service access during care and repair, and infrastructure at disposal. In-terventions should therefore combine consumer information with practical capabil-ity-building accessible repair systems and collective forms of behavioral support to promote consistent and meaningful sustainable engagement.</jats:p>