THE IMPORTANCE OF MENDING

By Samantha Roehl

You’d have to be living under a rock to not know that fast fashion has its downfalls. According to earth.org, the average American consumer throws away 81.5 pounds of clothes per year — and many items are worn only seven to ten times before being thrown out.

With this context, making your clothes last is a radical act. Think of how many times you’ve decided an item of clothing is unwearable because it has a small tear or a lost button. We need to reframe our understanding of the clothes we own. Once we buy them, we are responsible for making them last and, when we don’t want them anymore, passing them on to a new home. (On a more selfish note, I like my clothes and want to be able to keep wearing them!) So here are the three mending abilities that I think everyone should have:

Basic Hand Sewing

It is amazing how many things are fixable with just a needle and thread. Replacing buttons, sewing up a ripped seam, and reattaching a strap are just a few ways of many to make your clothes last. In the past semester alone, I’ve reattached tote bag straps and sewn up a tear in my favorite leggings.

Patches

Tears in fabric can destabilize the structure of a favorite piece of clothing. Tears are also, admittedly, harder to fix when they aren’t on the seam. However, patches can be an easy fix! Iron-on patches are available at most craft stores and will help increase the lifespan of your clothes — and, depending on your taste, add a fun design or pop of color!

Hemming

A great tragedy of life is that sometimes an otherwise perfect pair of pants is too long. That’s where hemming comes in. Hemming is relatively easy, if time consuming when done by hand. The most important part is making sure your hem is even when you fold up and pin the extra material. Then you can just tack down the fabric with thread. It’s okay if your hem doesn’t look perfect — as long as it improves the wearability of the garment for you, that’s all that matters.

One of the best things about hemming your clothes is that it can be undone, as long as you don’t cut off the excess material. This means that if you ever do decide to pass along your clothes — or get a much-coveted late in life growth spurt — you’ll be able to let down the hem and get the length back!

The fun thing about mending is that, once you know the basics, you can start playing around with it. Embroider over a stain! Add fun buttons to update your clothes! Take in a skirt that’s a little too big! Mending is a historical practice, which means there are innumerable resources out there already. It is likely that any second-hand bookshop with a craft section has books on hand sewing and mending. YouTube, too, has everything you might want to know.

Having a mini sewing kit in my apartment has been a lifesaver for both me and my roommate. Dresses have been fixed mere minutes before parties, pants have been shortened, buttons have been replaced. I’m not going to pretend that I’m perfect. I still buy clothes that end up unworn, still damage pieces in ways I don’t know how to fix. But mending reminds you to value the things you own and to think of the labor it took to make them in the first place. And the sense of pride I feel the next time I wear them is more than worth it.