how to mend clothes

It’s Time We All Learned to Mend Our Clothes

It's so much more than a trendy pandemic hobby

It’s been a big year for discovering new pastimes and random side projects. This year, I’ve somehow managed to rip my clothing like never before—even though I haven’t been active at all. Staring at a hole in my mock-neck sweater, I had a realization: We should all be learning how to mend, alter and re-make our clothes.

Wendy Liu, or WithWendy, as she is known to her million-plus YouTube subscribers, makes content showing her viewers how to re-create trendy items or rework existing pieces. In one of her latest videos, she converted a $10 green Ikea blanket into a Chanel-inspired two piece suit. Liu learned how to sew from her mother. Her initial abilities were, by her own admission, somewhat shaky. In university, she decided to make a YouTube channel focused on DIY fashion. She describes her time running her channel as a kind of “digital puberty” where she experimented with looks and took fashion risks before ultimately finding out more about her taste. To garner attention on Instagram, she began making very eye-catching items and started using more exciting colours. The channel grew, and eventually, Liu left her position in the corporate world and reorganized her apartment into a studio, making YouTube her full-time job. “Sewing is not unique,” she says, “There are many crafts where you just get better from doing it a lot. Just start.”

Liu finds sewing very gratifying. “I get to do something where I am constantly finding excuses to learn something new,” she says. “I really encourage people to pick up a craft if you have a little spare time. It is so good for your brain to use your hands and create something.” Because sewing requires you to think abstractly and problem-solve as you go, it’s a stimulating activity that can help you de-stress.

Learning how clothing is put together can also help you stay away from buying poorly made things. Liu says she has stopped buying skinny jeans because the spandex in the fabric makes them hard to patch up, unlike 100 per cent cotton denim. “I think people underestimate how much longer items can last if they take good care of them,” she says.

Leah Sanchez is the education and interpretation coordinator at the Textile Museum of Canada. Sanchez runs seminars on personalizing and re-working clothes and hasn’t bought any new clothes in almost three years. Instead, Sanchez gets most of her items through clothing swaps that she helps to organize. When she’s at a swap, she says she looks at a piece for its potential. Then, she takes her new acquisitions home and reworks them into custom pieces. Sanchez cuts off close collars and turns men’s shirts into skirts. During her digital seminar last month, these were just a few of the suggestions for potential alterations she gave to her class. She says she loves the freedom of being able to alter her clothes. “I think it’s a really accessible way to present your personality.”

According to the City of Toronto household waste audits, the average Toronto household throws out 17 kilograms of clothing and other textiles each year.

Mending and reimagining what we already own is also the mindful, sustainable thing to do. According to the City of Toronto household waste audits, the average Toronto household throws out 17 kilograms of clothing and other textiles each year. What makes all this waste even more significant is that it’s usually not recycled. In 2018 a study by the United States’ Environmental Protection Agency found that only 15 per cent of textiles were recycled in the U.S. that year. Sanchez attributes this waste to the growth of fast fashion: “You’re buying something for the season, you get sick of it, and it’s not well made, so you throw it away and buy something else. It’s a lot cheaper than buying quality stuff.”

This movement toward repairing and reusing what we already own has also given rise to the visible mending trend—clothes and household items that look intentionally patched together. Think: fixing a hole with contrasting fabric or using large, obvious stitch to repair a garment instead of trying to conceal the fix.

Liu says that receiving a compliment on something she made means so much more. “You can see that the effort you put in led to a positive result.” When I ask her for advice on getting into clothing repair and alterations, she suggests something simple like adding a trim. “I always say it’s good to start small. The real motivator to keep going is that gratifying feeling.”

Feeling inspired, I finally tried to fix the hole in my mock-neck. After watching a couple of online tutorials, I completed my first mending project in about half an hour. When I finished, I looked down at my now fully repaired sweater and felt a little bit of pride at my accomplishment. Since then, I’ve been sizing up the other ripped items in my closet, and I plan to fix them all.

 

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