Christina Foust wears her Sashiko-style patched jeans.
At the height of the Covid pandemic, I decided to learn a new skill. I had training from a high school home economics class, a sewing activity kit that had been gifted to the kids several years prior, and a hope to stretch out the life of my socks. What I’ve learned in the process is how important the culture of repair is, particularly to slowing down fast fashion.
Journalists coined the term fast fashion in the early 1990s, describing an approach to clothing design, manufacture, and retail characterized by speed. Cheap, trendy outfits could land in stores in as little as 15 days. And with influencers and ordinary people trading looks on Instagram and TikTok, the temptation to buy, wear, forget, repeat is ever-present. This adds up to awful impacts for people and the planet.
Advocacy against fast fashion has been with us for some time. As anti-globalization advocates of the late 1990s pointed out, companies took advantage of lax labor and environmental laws around the world to maximize their profits while workers earned poverty wages in dangerous conditions.
A growing issue is the clothing waste dumped by stores (with tags still on) or thrown out by consumers. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation reported that 92 million tons of textile waste are generated each year, the equivalent of one garbage truck full of clothing dumped or incinerated each second.
This cycle has to end somewhere, and as with other practices introduced in this column, if we all joined a culture of repair and reduce, we would see noticeable impacts.
This winter, I would suggest setting yourself up with a good base for repair. I’ve found that 100% cotton is more likely to hold patches and stitching. Yes, pure organic cotton socks are pricey and come with their own consumption and emissions trail. But I have 7-year-old socks in my drawer that, so far, have proven to be infinitely repairable. At $10 for one pair, they are an investment, especially when I could buy three pairs of an 82% cotton/18% poly blend for that price. But along with standing up to my patching, the socks don’t shed micro- plastics. And I enjoy imagining them as part of a rag rug, with their ultimate demise perhaps in an industrial compost bin.
I’ve also found the used clothing marketplace a wonderful resource for sourcing 100% natural fibers that are repairable with visible mending. I am brand-loyal to jeans that, like so many others, succumbed to the pressures of polyester around 2015. But on sites like Poshmark, vintage dealers and ordinary people trying to rehome nice used clothes at cost have 99–100% cotton jeans for sale. I’m all set with my base for more repair, joining a 17-year-old pair of jeans that I mended in the Sashiko style. Some people in Japan honed this technique during the 1600s to 1800s, as they embroidered geometric patterns or designs inspired by nature to make hemp clothing last longer. Sashiko both patches and reinforces fabric. And mending jeans has the bonus of saving money!
Instead of adding to clothing waste, consider a few pieces for your repairable base wardrobe or a repair kit that you and your family can learn with together. And if you have inspiration for visible mending or more tips on second-hand shopping, send them my way!
Christina Foust is a professor of Communication Studies at MSU Denver and co-founder of the Westerly Creek Elementary School Green Team. Email her at cfoust2@msudenver.edu or reach out on Facebook.
California passed a state bill that increases textile waste responsibility to reduce textile waste in late 2024. Colorado should pass something similar! https://everywhereapparel.com/blogs/learn/california-sb-707