Bank holidays mean little to unsalaried jobbers like myself, but I strongly believe we should all get a day, perhaps two, away from work each year to search for the perfect pair of jeans. At least a decent pair if perfection is too much to ask. Good jeans should last a lifetime rather than demand a seasonal refresh for fashion points, and contemporary denim is rarely as hardy as it could be.
The news that M&S has just launched a nationwide clothing repair service is cheering. The retailer found that only 10 per cent of us can mend our own clothes, while 60 per cent of British consumers wish that big shops like M&S put the work in to help us make better environmental choices and lower our carbon footprints. The mending service is available right away, from a clothing alteration company called SOJO, which already works with a number of high fashion brands and has a repair concession in Selfridges in London’s Oxford Street.
M&S has collected more than 36 million garments via its clothes donation scheme, raising around £23m to fight poverty. This plan to give “another life” to even more items is undoubtedly noble. But, why not extend these suggestions towards sustainability by making better clothes in the first place?
I buy all pretty much all my jeans from M&S. Seven pairs in four years. Why so many? They do not last. Bust zips, burst seams, worn-through bums. Only three are still wearable. Why do I keep buying them? They fit. And at £39.50 a pair, despite the still simmering guilt at spending on “fast fashion” then wasting the bounty, I’ve gone back to this same product time after time.
I haven’t fixed any of the broken pairs because I can’t replace zips or darn worn denim (if that’s even a thing) myself. I keep them hanging around for a few months, ask advice, find out that fixing them will cost almost as much as a new pair, eventually give up. I’d love to repair them each time, but I would also like clothes that last longer than a year.
What’s more, the cost of the new repair service doesn’t add up. A new zip would be £25. Patching one area or fixing a rip is £17. I don’t doubt the £25 is a very fair price for the work SOJU tailors put in, and the options start at £5 for a new button or belt loop repair, but it doesn’t relate to the initial £39.50 outlay.
After much trawling, I’ve found a few more pairs of jeans I can bear to wear. One is from Arket, which talks about using recycled materials and factory traceability, but is owned by fast fashion giant H&M. Another pair is from Nudie Jeans and costs from £150, but the company offers both free repairs forever, and the opportunity to trade in old pairs for a discount on new.
For a long time, I tried not to buy so-called fast fashion, the umbrella term used to describe any clothing produced to poor ethical standards, which we might only wear a few times before turning our attention to a new trend or, say, busting the zip. But my budget was also bust and my wardrobe depressingly bare. According to sustainable manufacturing organization WRAP, we throw away £140m worth of serviceable clothing every year, and 1.6 billion items of clothing in UK wardrobes aren’t worn, an average of 31 items per person. The Vinted churn might be cheaper and more fun than shopping for new clothes, but I think most of us have realized that it also feeds our urge for the new.
More high street stores should follow the repair and rewear example, and I applaud M&S for trying to set better standards, but I can’t see the value – to me or the planet – in paying to repair jeans that threaten to break time and time again. Let’s start with longer-lasting products, and save me the shame of yet another burst bum seam.