Fix up, look sharp: how to mend more and buy less
An industrious weaver called Krysta Relyea recently wrote a post on Instagram saying she had just realised she owned enough pairs of jeans to get her through the rest of her life, provided she maintains her weight. “Of course, patches and new zippers will be a must,” she said. “Some just need a little altering.”
Search the terms with which she tagged that nugget – including #buynothingnew, #visiblemending and #makedoandmend – and a world of possibility opens up. Whereas visibly repaired clothes might once have been considered a sign of not being able to afford new ones, the mending movement celebrates the ingenuity our forebears deployed to make old things last. If your new year aim is to buck the national trend by not buying a suitcase-worth of new clothes – not to mention the new items to the value of £9,000 that the average household wastes or doesn’t use every year – mending skills may come in handy.
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