” Repair is a radical act”: London shop to cut waste by replacing 30,000 clothing annually

November 24, 2023

Sewing vintage-style dresses, riding shorts, and completion gowns are all being made by seamstresses at a clothing manufacturer in Haringey, north London.

45 welders at the factory have been producing apparel for ASOS and Community Clothing for twelve years. They used to sew more than 10,000 garments per year, but then they only make about half of that.

The stock was having trouble because of a combination of businesses using less expensive factories worldwide and wanting smaller operates to reduce waste.

Jenny Holloway, the chief executive, is determined not to make everyone redundant, so she has changed course. 15 of the company’s welders repair clothes instead of making them; by 2025, they will be repairing 30,000 garments annually.

Jenny is ecstatic inside the repair shop. ” This is the future you can see right now. We ought to be receiving a cloth every day of life. We should n’t discard clothing, right?

The concept is straightforward: when your clothes are torn or a postal breaks, you simply send the item up to the company rather than replacing it entirely. Therefore they give it to this group of tradesmen, who make it appear brand new.

In general, dry cleaning, dress agencies, and tailors did all perform repairs, but the United Repair Center stands out because of the scope of its services.

Its Amsterdam unit is already being used by companies like Patagonia, Lulu Lemon, and Decathlon to restore tens of thousands of clothes annually.

repair factory feature

Learn more to learn:
Adidas loses a legal dispute over the design of its stripes.
Britain were turned against rapid fashion by Lockdown.

Patagonia, a manufacturer of outside attire, is currently using the London maintenance facility. According to Alex Beasley, who oversees Patagonia’s operations in the UK, Ireland, and the Nordics, repairing clothing involves more than just extending its useful life.

” Repair is a dramatic deed.” You’re going against the program that defines us as consumers [instead of citizens ] and helps us cut consumption by simply repairing rather than buying new.

Today, we wear five times as many clothing as we did twenty years ago, and apparel manufacturers produce more than one million new items daily.

repair factory feature

The tide of dresses, shirts, and socks wo n’t be stopped by one repair facility, but the co-founders here see it as the beginning of something much bigger.

Paul Kerssens, Chief Operating Officer at the United Repair Centre, asserts that” we believe that fix and reconditioning of clothes is fundamental to the shift of the fashion industry.”

Therefore, it is our goal to actually transform the program. We’re starting out little, but our goals are high for the center in the UK.

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