Hardy Amies is often cited as saying that one should look as if one has ‘chosen their clothes with intelligence, put them on with care… and then forgotten all about them’. It’s this last point that gives someone a comfort and ease about them, and also a confidence. But it’s also in this nonchalance that daily life can start to take its toll.
Tears, pulls, snags and wear are all part and parcel of wearing the clothes we love so much. How can we enjoy them if we don’t wear them and live our lives in them? How can we enjoy them if we’re too protective of them or if they’re a constant source of worry for us? But also, how can we enjoy them if they’re too damaged?
For the extreme majority of clothes, there’s always a solution; a repair to turn something no longer worn back into an old favourite.
The most common repairs we do are either neat repairs or invisible mending. For any woven fabric – be it trousers, shirts, jackets or knitwear – we can darn, restitch or even re-weave to leave virtually no trace of the issue. For those looking for ‘as good as new’, these are the repair services we would recommend.
However, there is undoubtedly a growing appreciation of the visible repair. Using a contrast coloured thread or a heterogenous patch can highlight the repair in a way that pays homage to the garment’s life story. For neat tailoring, invisible mending is still the appropriate repair, but for more casual clothing, visible repairing adds character. This sort of care if often what we would recommend on knitwear or slouchy overcoats, and of course it looks amazing on tweeds, which already have a depth of colour formed of different yarns.