Ever thought about the journey your favouritest piece of clothing? Hold onto your needles and threads, because we're about to explore the world of mending and repairing! Try to spot my very first invisible mending job on a damaged cashmere sweater, and join me as I journey into the realm of visible mending with Elysha from Worth Mending. We dive into the benefits of mending services in retail stores and how it could be a game changer in the fashion industry.
But this is not just about stitching up worn-out clothes; it's a call to arms against exploitative practices in the fashion industry. We expose the harsh reality behind a luxury brand (Who could it be?!). Hopefully my mending journey inspires you to take up the needle and thread not just to breathe new life into your clothes, but as a subversive act against fashions unethical practices. So, join me, Miranda Black, on this second day of Remake's #nonewclothes mini challenge! Stitch by stitch, we'll transform how you perceive your clothes and the industry that creates them.
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Speaker 1:
Hey all you de-growers out there. My name is Miranda Black. This is what's this Place behind the clicks and mortar. And today is day two of Remake's no New Clothes mini challenges. Yay, If you're only just tuning in, I highly recommend you listen to the episode what is no New Clothes. You can also check out day one of the mini challenge, which was your most worn piece of clothing. Did you do it? Why do you love it so much? What's the story behind that piece? Oh my god, I wish I could hear your answers right now as you're driving in your car or cooking up that meal. But today we're doing day two, which is a piece of clothing in your wardrobe that you have mended, repaired, upcycled. Let's go inside and find out. So here we go with more truth bombs. I have no idea how to sew.
Speaker 1:
Even though I owned a tailor shop, we mended hundreds and hundreds of garments. That was actually a huge part of the success of my store the ability for people to just drop off something that they had torn or even worn through on the elbows and we would mend it, and we did it free of charge. This is how I personally think all clothing stores should operate. I mean not necessarily for free. That might be a bit hard in post-pandemic retail life, but that policy we did. It brought people in the door and that is key for bricks and mortar stores getting people in the door. I used to make calls to ask people how is that purchase working out, Any buttons falling off? So we fix it as it wears, because it's going to, it's going to wear.
Speaker 1:
Could you imagine buying a car and never taking it in for upkeep and just expecting it to last or not knowing where to take your car to have it fixed? Clothing upkeep would completely change the world fashion game. Imagine if H&M or Old Navy provided mending services, because often people just don't know where to take their torn pieces. They don't know who to trust, or maybe they don't even know that it can be mended. It gets worn, torn, a button comes off and the belief is well, that's over. The life of the garment is just done. But clothing can be mended way more easily than a car can.
Speaker 1:
So there's invisible mending, which is what we used to do at my store. Invisible mending means you got to look really hard. I'm showing you a piece of clothing here. It's a cashmere sweater that was mended and you got to look really hard to even even I know where it is and I can't find it. It takes extremely skilled tailors or seamstresses to do this kind of work and it is expensive and there's fewer and fewer people who even have this level of skill. That's invisible mending.
Speaker 1:
And then there's visible mending, which I only found out about in the past couple of years because I used to think it's not mended. If you can see where the tear was Like, it looks like Frankenstein. But the wear or the tear with visible mending is incorporated into the look of the garment, so like a patch or sewing it up and contrasting thread in a way that makes the tear look like a new garment in a way. And it's super in right now for clothing to arrive brand new brush on the shelf with these men's and tears and wares, pre-done jeans ripped to shreds and then patched up. It is the perfect time for someone like me, a noob sewer, to try it out. I certainly can't do invisible mending that is way above my level of skill, but trying my best only for it to look like something from Spring 2023 Runways which were filled with raw hams, unfinished seams and messy thread. I thought I can do this.
Speaker 1:
So for Christmas, I asked for this repair kit from Worth Mending. Where is it? Here it is, Check it out. It's called a Swift Darning Loom. Now you put your fabric in there and it's a fancy way of saying the hand-sewn patch. That looks super cool. If you're just tuning in for this as your first episode, I am now on YouTube so you can see my beautiful Swift Darning Loom.
Speaker 1:
So I asked for this repair kit for Christmas. I got it and then I realized I have no idea how to use this thing. But you can sign up for a one-on-one tutorial with Alicia, the owner of Worth Mending, which I did, and she is super patient and helps you get started. And sometimes getting started is the biggest hurdle to this kind of DIY stuff. Even after all the YouTube tutorials, you need someone just watching to say, oh, no, no, no, that's where you're going wrong. And the Worth Mending tutorials, which are called MEND Toring. I love a good pun. So, yeah, I signed up for MEND Toring and, as I recall, it's really affordable. So click there if you're an aspirational mender.
Speaker 1:
So I chose to mend this cashmere sweater. It is filled with holes from my dog. When she was puppy. She got hold of it and there's one of the cuff. I haven't done that one yet, but you can see that she got hold of it and just chewed the crap out of the whole thing.
Speaker 1:
And it's a luxury brand and when I first wrote this episode I wasn't going to name the brand, because I did a little research and I found out they do not pay their workers a living wage, they have not committed to a textile waste plan in their supply chain, so I wasn't going to give them any promotion. But then I read on Remake actually there's another click for you. So I'm going to say it's Michael Kors, it's right here and you can actually help free a Cambodian garment worker by clicking through to the Remake brand directory page on Michael Kors. This garment worker her name is Soy. She is in jail because she posted about the terrible work conditions of the factory where they produce Michael Kors bags. She worked there, posted on Facebook about the deplorable conditions and was charged with the Cambodian offence of incitement and she was jailed and she could end up spending up to three years in prison because of the charge. She's the mother of two kids. So yeah, I'm naming names.
Speaker 1:
It's Michael Kors and I used to carry Michael Kors at my store full disclosure. But I stopped carrying them because we had to mend so much of it before it even got on the floor. It was made so sloppily, which isn't the fault of the garment worker. They're just being forced to get things out so quickly because that's the contract that Michael Kors made with the factory and meanwhile he's on a yacht. So avoid Michael Kors if you can.
Speaker 1:
But back to mending On a garment that I now have evidence was more than likely made by someone under really shitty circumstances. So I want it to last as long as possible to kind of honor the work someone like Soy put into it. But it's filled with these holes for my dog and I know that if I don't repair it, no one is going to buy this from a thrift store, so it's just going to get sent off into the ocean to be burned or dumped. So, with Alicia from Worth Mending, I am slowly building a new piece and there's my, that's my very I think that's my very first one that I did and there's another hole right beside there that I'm working on and I so I have all these like contrasting patches all over this sweater and it looks really great. I also get stopped for this piece on the street all the time, people asking where I got it. That's fashion. People are paying thousands of dollars, and sometimes tens of thousands of dollars, for stuff that anyone with just an iota of skill can pull off in their living room or apartment with thread that you can find at your local thrift store. So, yes, I did this, but I have zero skill, so you can do it too.
Speaker 1:
My little act of mending makes me feel accomplished. It gives me like this joy to keep the sweater out of landfill, but also it's like subversive, because I'm honoring people like Soy who are toiling for pennies to make this expensive shit, and I'm not buying new expensive shit. Okay, so that's it. I've ranted, I've raved, I've asked you to click and find out more. I think we're done here. That's day two. Jesus, we're only at day two. I cannot wait for day three of Remake's no New Clothes mini challenges. My name is Miranda Black. This is what's this place behind the clicks and mortar. I want to thank Remake for the research and reporting they do on the brand directory, as well as Worth Mending and Alicia. Thank you so much for helping me start my mending journey. I will see you next time.