From workshops to the catwalk - why mended clothes are going mainstream

From workshops to the catwalk - why mended clothes are going mainstream

Alice Brown uses felt animals to cover holes and stains on her clothes

If Alice Brown is looking around second-hand shops and spots a jumper with a hole, that will not put her off buying it.

“I see it as challenge,” says the 27-year-old forest ranger from Lincolnshire.

She is an advocate of the expanding fashion for striking repairs.

Over the past year, she has created her own distinctive style, needle-felting cute animals and insects to hide moth holes, stains and other flaws, and has gained a huge online following.

“The natural place for decoration is in the centre at the front. If the hole is under the arm or on the shoulder, it forces you to think about the design,” she says.

Often called “visible mending”, the trend is moving beyond hobby crafters and community workshops, attracting fast-fashion brands and even reaching designer catwalks this year.

Some mends are designed to be eye-catching

At a Saturday morning workshop in Brighton, Jayne Eagle demonstrates to her students how to sew a patch of fabric behind a tear so the cat-face design shows through.

She then teaches them stitching methods inspired by the traditional Japanese techniques Boro and Sashiko. Rather than matching the thread colour to the garment, they make the repair highly decorative with geometric patterns in large white stitching.

She also runs classes in darning with contrasting bright colours that celebrate the repair instead of hiding it.

Jayne Eagle sees repair as an “act of rebellion” against fast fashion

One student, Nicola, has already used her new skills to stitch over sunscreen marks on a T-shirt, “making a feature of it”, and is now pleased that people “stop seeing the stains and just see the decoration”.

Another student, Lisa, says her mother’s generation would never have wanted the mends to be visible. “Now part of it is being proud of what you’ve done,” she says.

Lisa bought a second-hand jacket online, but cut the fabric with scissors while opening the package. She fixed it in a way that “looks intentional”.

“I was actually pointing it out to people,” she laughs.

Lisa says she is so proud of her mends that she wants people to notice them

In the past, mending was mainly about saving money by wearing clothes for longer instead of buying new ones. But visible mending is about celebrating that decision.

Jayne says the trend began taking off about six years ago and has surged since.

An age of “throwaway” fast fashion from the 1980s onwards weakened the tradition of caring for and mending clothes, and people lost the skills, she says.

The renewed interest feels to her like a backlash against overproduction in the fashion industry and the harm it causes: pollution, carbon emissions, water use and poor labour conditions.

So it may be surprising how popular mended style is becoming with retailers, with brands from Ralph Lauren to ultra-fast-fashion company Shein currently selling stitched and patched garments, though in both cases these are brand new off the peg.

Other High Street chains are taking a more authentic route, offering in-house repairs and workshops.

“We want to give customers practical ways to extend the life of the clothes they already love, rather than simply replacing them,” says Uniqlo’s head of sustainability, Maria Ledous.

Primark, often viewed as a fast-fashion retailer because of its lower prices, has also joined the trend.

“We don’t think that affordability and durability should be opposites,” says Vicki Swain, the brand’s longevity lead.

Outdoor brand Finisterre says about a fifth of the mends it offers customers are meant to be eye-catching, while premium artisan clothing store Toast says about a third of customers choose that option.

Part of the “magic” is that customers can bring in a garment and “choose what they’d like it to become next”, says Toast chief executive Suzie de Rohan Willner.

Toast’s repair services are free, but off-the-peg “renewed” pieces sell for higher prices than the originals to reflect their unique character.

Levi’s, which has probably the longest tradition of being repaired by fans using everything from rhinestones to fringed cuffs, is launching a workshop programme this year.

The company says its research shows younger customers in particular want to repair more but do not know how.

For now, Levi’s workshops are focused on traditional mending skills, such as sewing on a button and hemming, rather than visible mends, and at a recent launch event in London, that appeared to be what its Gen Z participants wanted.

“I’m from East London. If you have holes in your clothes people are like ‘Ha ha! You’re poor!’,” says 16-year-old school student Bianca.

At a workshop run by Levi’s, Nicholas (r) says he prefers mending not to show, while Bianca (centre) says people still see it as a sign of poverty

Theo, 19, says he would rather learn how to mend without it showing.

“I would want [the jeans] to look how I originally bought them,” he says.

He has a side hustle selling clothes at car boot sales and thinks traditional repair skills would make it more profitable.

His friend Nicholas, also 19, says most people want to look “fresh”.

“No-one wants to look like they came out of a dumpster,” he says.

Still, Paul Dillinger, Levi’s head of global design innovation, believes more creative repairs will win them over as they gain more skills.

“No-one has time for that perfect ‘straight from the shop’ thing. That’s not cool.

“People crave agency,” he says. “Mending is a demonstration of humanity: it’s not a mustard stain, it’s a memory of a great day in the ballpark.”