Designing Scales of Domestic Mending in Fashion

This workshop explores mending practices as a personal and domestic response to the overwhelming problems of fast consumption and waste within the fashion industry. Participants are asked to bring one garment, which has holes, tears, stains, or other kinds of damages, and to co-explore domestic mending in fashion with other attenders and researchers. The aim of this practice-based workshop is to further substantiate the ongoing discussion of how to engage people in mending. In particular, it seeks to understand how design for different scales of engagement can meet personal preconditions and ambitions.

During the workshop, we will test a pre-defined mending spectrum, consisting of aesthetic parameters such as structure, colour, materials and the most versatile mending techniques, swiss darn and needle weaving. By using redesigned mending tools, we will explore how design can facilitate scales of engagement with contemporary mending practices in fashion.