The Artful Menders
Hello I’m Emma,
Director and mender at The Artful Menders - a repair, alteration and upcycling service aimed at giving life to pre-loved items to prevent them being thrown into landfill.
The journey of TAM started during the covid pandemic and in all intents and purposes has been a surprise success, having grown from a part time side hustle for two of us to now being a full time job for me working with four part time freelancers.
THE ARTFUL MENDERS BACKGROUND
The original Artful Menders were myself and friend Cathy who, during covid, found both of our creative industries came to a standstill and we were out of work (mine in live events and Cathy’s in bridalwear). During a whatsapp conversation last August we were lamenting about the state of the fashion industry and how difficult it was to get clothing mended or altered in a cool way - so we decided to start doing it ourselves and our passion for a sustainable alternative to fast fashion was born!
I hit social media hard and created a brand that looked relatable and consistent with the sustainable messaging we wanted to promote. We started reading literature about sustainable fashion choices and following, sharing and linking with some wonderful advocates who raise awareness of the perils of fast fashion like Fashion Revolution, Orsola De Castro, The OR Foundation and The Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
The response was amazing and orders started coming in from Facebook and Instagram throughout the end of 2020 and the early lockdown of this year.
Both Cathy and I are trained theatre designers having between us worked in film, tv, carnivals, ceremonies and the west end. So our combined expertise in period costume, prop making, bridalwear and seamstressing, and the confidence to have a go at mending anything, meant that we got a fair amount of attention locally. The range of objects we’ve repaired include horse blankets, rugs, sofas, golf bags, slippers and many soft toys.
With clothing we started to say that the mended garments were in fact “better than new” because after the repair they had more of a story to them, and were ultimately unique if they had been visibly repaired.
Fast forward 9 months and we have been able to have face to face mending workshops and use a shared space once a week to do repairs and have fittings. Cathy has returned to her job in the bridal industry, but still mends for TAM on a freelance basis. I have brought on 3 other freelance seamstresses and made TAM a limited company.
A SUSTAINABLE ALTERNATIVE
Nowadays there are many reasons why people don’t bother getting their clothing repaired, sometimes it’s an economical issue - the garment may have been really cheap to buy in the first place and when it’s cheaper to buy new than repair why bother? Sometimes it’s because there just isn’t any emotional attachment formed to the garment so it’s easily disposed of. We are bombarded by a lot of advertising from fast fashion retailers and we are made to believe that the clothes should change every few months to be in ‘fashion’, so why would we waste our time and money to repair something so transient?
Therefore we have to ask ourselves ‘why are these garments so cheap in the first place?’ - clearly someone is losing out in the supply chain and questions have to be answered as to how that is allowed. If we look back in history we would never have had access to this huge resource of cheap clothing. You may remember specific items of clothing that your grandparents wore because they would only have had a handful of outfits. They may have made them themselves and would have most likely repaired and looked after them in a way that is completely alien to us now. Because we don’t have that connection with our current wardrobe, clothes are bought, worn seldomly and disposed of often.
When we started researching the general facts about clothing consumption it was utterly depressing:
“On average, each garment will be worn just 7 times.” The Wall Street Journal
“By 2050, the textile industry is on track to: Increase its share of the global carbon budget from 2% to 26%; Triple its consumption of non-renewable resources; Add over 24 million tonnes ot microplastics to our oceans.” Ellen MacArthur Foundation
“208 million lbs of waste were generated by single use outfits in 2019.” Green Story Inc Environmental Study
So we became intent on empowering people to change these habits and provide a service that can offer an alternative to it.
ARTFULLY MENDING INTO THE FUTURE
At the core of TAM we want to encourage an emotional attachment to the clothes we have, prevent items of clothing going to landfill and give a viable alternative to buying new. So all repairs - from classic ones on seams, zips and hems to unique and beautiful visible mends like sashiko and darns will always be the main part of what we do.
Our Basic Mends workshop and one hour Zoom demonstrations have proven to be really popular and it’s clear that people have the desire to learn repair skills themselves.
What I have spent a lot of the summer doing is writing a series of workshops based on various mending skills for both machine and handsewing, and some others looking at our relationship with clothes, how to find your style and make the most of the clothes in your wardrobe.
I am also working with Sustainable Chesham to start a volunteer led Repair Cafe and a series of swishing evenings. Hopefully we will be able to host some great events during Sustainable Fashion Week (11th - 19th September).
I’m really excited to see what the year holds for The Artful Menders and look forward to continuing to prevent clothing landfill and spreading the word on more sustainable choices!