Title Card: Beyond Fast Fashion in China: Can Repair and Customization Lead the Way to a More Sustainable Future?
Do people still repair clothes nowadays? In the old days, when clothing wasn’t a commodity and scarce, people would often patch up their clothes. In fact, we could see a lot of the old vintage clothing, especially workwear, was patched up. In the old days, many people at home would know how to make clothes or patch up clothing. I remember seeing old-fashioned magazines in the late 1800s and early 1900s with paper patterns to teach you how to make a new style of clothing at home, as in those days, many people would buy fabrics and make their own clothes.
Clothes aren't being patched up as often; people used to make their own clothes.
In China, the apparel market was similar to the develoClothing remake book from 1950sClothing remake book from 1950spment in the West, during the 20s and 30s we could see ready made clothing entering the market, so for some higher income people don’t need to buy fabrics and make their own but was still scarce resources and for many decades, clothing were still remain scarce so and no where near what it was like today so mending and remaking old clothes into different style was popular.
Clothing remake book from the 1950s.
I have an old book from the 50s that teaches people how to remake their used clothes into another style. Almost all households, especially mothers and grandmothers, were very skilful in using sewing machines as well as hand sewing. In today's modern world, the older generations were still good with hand sewing, but this skill set hasn't really been passed on to the younger generations, like many modern cities around the World, because clothing has gotten so cheap and abundant compared to the income level.
Clothing is so cheap now, sewing skill is reduced in younger generations.
So now in many cities around China, small clothing repair shops are often found around the corner of streets near some older communities in the city. Some of these shops opened up in the local community center or at the local market to help residents nearby to alter or patch up their clothes; some places even offer to refurbish your old goose down or cotton blanket by refilling them with new down or cotton. So the idea of mending and refurbishing has not been forgotten and is still around in today’s China.
China has continued the tradition of refurbishing clothes.
With the rise of the sustainable fashion trend, brands such as Uniqlo are offering repair services for their old products to customers. Outdoor brands like Patagonia are also offering repair services in China. This could be a rising trend to make people more aware and participate in these services, so as to prolong the life of old clothes. It is still early to say how popular these programs will get as brands, but because the concept of thrifting is a traditional virtue, this could catch on quickly.