Day 2 No New Clothes

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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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey all you de-growers out there.
My name is Miranda Black.
This is what's this Placebehind the clicks and mortar.
And today is day two ofRemake's no New Clothes mini
challenges.
Yay, If you're only just tuningin, I highly recommend you
listen to the episode what is noNew Clothes.
You can also check out day oneof the mini challenge, which was

(00:23):
your most worn piece ofclothing.
Did you do it?
Why do you love it so much?
What's the story behind thatpiece?
Oh my god, I wish I could hearyour answers right now as you're
driving in your car or cookingup that meal.
But today we're doing day two,which is a piece of clothing in
your wardrobe that you havemended, repaired, upcycled.

(00:44):
Let's go inside and find out.
So here we go with more truthbombs.
I have no idea how to sew.
Even though I owned a tailorshop, we mended hundreds and
hundreds of garments.
That was actually a huge partof the success of my store the

(01:05):
ability for people to just dropoff something that they had torn
or even worn through on theelbows and we would mend it, and
we did it free of charge.
This is how I personally thinkall clothing stores should
operate.
I mean not necessarily for free.
That might be a bit hard inpost-pandemic retail life, but
that policy we did.

(01:27):
It brought people in the doorand that is key for bricks and
mortar stores getting people inthe door.
I used to make calls to askpeople how is that purchase
working out, Any buttons fallingoff?
So we fix it as it wears,because it's going to, it's
going to wear.
Could you imagine buying a carand never taking it in for

(01:48):
upkeep and just expecting it tolast or not knowing where to
take your car to have it fixed?
Clothing upkeep wouldcompletely change the world
fashion game.
Imagine if H&M or Old Navyprovided mending services,
because often people just don'tknow where to take their torn
pieces.
They don't know who to trust,or maybe they don't even know

(02:09):
that it can be mended.
It gets worn, torn, a buttoncomes off and the belief is well
, that's over.
The life of the garment is justdone.
But clothing can be mended waymore easily than a car can.
So there's invisible mending,which is what we used to do at
my store.
Invisible mending means you gotto look really hard.

(02:30):
I'm showing you a piece ofclothing here.
It's a cashmere sweater thatwas mended and you got to look
really hard to even even I knowwhere it is and I can't find it.
It takes extremely skilledtailors or seamstresses to do
this kind of work and it isexpensive and there's fewer and
fewer people who even have thislevel of skill.

(02:51):
That's invisible mending.
And then there's visible mending, which I only found out about
in the past couple of yearsbecause I used to think it's not
mended.
If you can see where the tearwas Like, it looks like
Frankenstein.
But the wear or the tear withvisible mending is incorporated
into the look of the garment, solike a patch or sewing it up

(03:15):
and contrasting thread in a waythat makes the tear look like a
new garment in a way.
And it's super in right now forclothing to arrive brand new
brush on the shelf with thesemen's and tears and wares,
pre-done jeans ripped to shredsand then patched up.
It is the perfect time forsomeone like me, a noob sewer,

(03:37):
to try it out.
I certainly can't do invisiblemending that is way above my
level of skill, but trying mybest only for it to look like
something from Spring 2023Runways which were filled with
raw hams, unfinished seams andmessy thread.
I thought I can do this.

(03:57):
So for Christmas, I asked forthis repair kit from Worth
Mending.
Where is it?
Here it is, Check it out.
It's called a Swift DarningLoom.
Now you put your fabric inthere and it's a fancy way of
saying the hand-sewn patch.
That looks super cool.
If you're just tuning in forthis as your first episode, I am
now on YouTube so you can seemy beautiful Swift Darning Loom.

(04:21):
So I asked for this repair kitfor Christmas.
I got it and then I realized Ihave no idea how to use this
thing.
But you can sign up for aone-on-one tutorial with Alicia,
the owner of Worth Mending,which I did, and she is super
patient and helps you getstarted.
And sometimes getting startedis the biggest hurdle to this

(04:42):
kind of DIY stuff.
Even after all the YouTubetutorials, 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 MENDToring and, as I recall, it's
really affordable.
So click there if you're anaspirational mender.

(05:04):
So I chose to mend this cashmeresweater.
It is filled with holes from mydog.
When she was puppy.
She got hold of it and there'sone of the cuff.
I haven't done that one yet,but you can see that she got
hold of it and just chewed thecrap out of the whole thing.
And it's a luxury brand and whenI first wrote this episode I

(05:26):
wasn't going to name the brand,because I did a little research
and I found out they do not paytheir workers a living wage,
they have not committed to atextile waste plan in their
supply chain, so I wasn't goingto give them any promotion.
But then I read on Remakeactually there's another click
for you.
So I'm going to say it'sMichael Kors, it's right here

(05:47):
and you can actually help free aCambodian garment worker by
clicking through to the Remakebrand directory page on Michael
Kors.
This garment worker her name isSoy.
She is in jail because sheposted about the terrible work
conditions of the factory wherethey produce Michael Kors bags.
She worked there, posted onFacebook about the deplorable

(06:08):
conditions and was charged withthe Cambodian offence of
incitement and she was jailedand she could end up spending up
to three years in prisonbecause of the charge.
She's the mother of two kids.
So yeah, I'm naming names.
It's Michael Kors and I used tocarry Michael Kors at my store
full disclosure.

(06:29):
But I stopped carrying thembecause we had to mend so much
of it before it even got on thefloor.
It was made so sloppily, whichisn't the fault of the garment
worker.
They're just being forced toget things out so quickly
because that's the contract thatMichael Kors made with the
factory and meanwhile he's on ayacht.
So avoid Michael Kors if youcan.

(06:51):
But back to mending On a garmentthat I now have evidence was
more than likely made by someoneunder really shitty
circumstances.
So I want it to last as long aspossible to kind of honor the
work someone like Soy put intoit.
But it's filled with theseholes for my dog and I know that
if I don't repair it, no one isgoing to buy this from a thrift

(07:11):
store, so it's just going toget sent off into the ocean to
be burned or dumped.
So, with Alicia from WorthMending, I am slowly building a
new piece and there's my, that'smy very I think that's my very
first one that I did and there'sanother hole right beside there
that I'm working on and I so Ihave all these like contrasting

(07:34):
patches all over this sweaterand it looks really great.
I also get stopped for thispiece on the street all the time
, people asking where I got it.
That's fashion.
People are paying thousands ofdollars, and sometimes tens of
thousands of dollars, for stuffthat anyone with just an iota of
skill can pull off in theirliving room or apartment with

(07:56):
thread that you can find at yourlocal thrift store.
So, yes, I did this, but I havezero skill, so you can do it
too.
My little act of mending makesme feel accomplished.
It gives me like this joy tokeep the sweater out of landfill
, but also it's like subversive,because I'm honoring people
like Soy who are toiling forpennies to make this expensive

(08:18):
shit, and I'm not buying newexpensive shit.
Okay, so that's it.
I've ranted, I've raved, I'veasked 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 ofRemake's no New Clothes mini
challenges.
My name is Miranda Black.
This is what's this placebehind the clicks and mortar.
I want to thank Remake for theresearch and reporting they do

(08:41):
on the brand directory, as wellas Worth Mending and Alicia.
Thank you so much for helpingme start my mending journey.
I will see you next time.