REPAIR ON THIS GLOBAL RECYCLING DAY

Courtesy of Imperial War Museum.

 

Today is global recycling day, and we’ve stumbled across this fun campaign video from 1943, which perfectly highlights our take on it. From 1941 to 1949, buying new clothes was rationed, so the British public was encouraged to reuse, repair and reimagine their old clothes, to give them a new lease of life. These ideas are just as important now, as many of us attempt to reduce the amount of new clothing we buy. Not only does buying secondhand help to recycle textiles, but the idea of ‘make do and mend’ does too, by stopping them from ever reaching the landfill.

Watch the video here: https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/make-do-and-mend-0

 

Courtesy of Imperial War Museum.

 

Unfortunately, recycling textiles through your local recycling collection points isn’t always the best solution, even for clothes in need of repair, as it doesn’t actually mean old fibres are being turned into new garments as we might expect. This is something that organisations such as The Or Foundation highlight, saying that more often than not, these clothes end up in places like Kantamanto, a market in Ghana that is totally inundated with the west’s old, recycled goods, and where sellers don’t always have the means to make the necessary repairs, meaning much of it ends up being thrown into landfills or burned anyway. This is detrimental to the success of the market and their sellers, not only to the environment. Instead, The Or Foundation urges that you repair yourself (or through excellent apps such as Sojo) to renew your clothes, extend the wear, and keep your garments from becoming waste.

Courtesy of Imperial War Museum.

 

Repairing clothes can not only provide more wear but create character and tactility. Some of our favourite pieces from the showroom are those that with visible mending, such as patches or darning. We love these traces of wear – here are a couple of our favourite examples, excerpted from Worn.

Worn Vol. 1 from The Vintage Showroom, 2015

 

Try a new take on recycling your textiles, by giving them a new life through repairing, remaking, reselling and more.

 

‘Make Do and Mend’ was sourced from the Imperial War Museum https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/make-do-and-mend-0

The Or Foundation: https://theor.org/  or @theorispresent on Instagram.

Sojo: https://home.sojo.uk/ or @sojo_app on Instagram.