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My Thoughts on Visible Mending

A love letter to one of my favourite types of customisation: visible mending.

15 December 2024
Right, let’s talk visible mending. It’s easily one of my favourite types of sewing-based customization, as I think it’s a really rad mix of aesthetic and functional modification. In case you’re not familiar with the concept, it’s pretty much what it says on the tin: a method of repair that’s intentionally visible. I see it most with clothing, so that’s what I’ll focus on in this post, but it can really be done to anything physical in need of repair.

Some examples of visible mending include embroidering, darning, adding patches to things, or even just using a bunch of safety pins to hold together tears. I think it’s really cool, as you’re not only expanding your belongings’ lifespan, but adding decorative elements, infusing your personality or style into it in one fell swoop. It’s not just maintaining the item, but can increase its value, uniqueness, or sentimental value. It can also require a lot less technical skill than invisible mending, since you don’t need to material or technique match the pre-existing make of the textile or object. 

We undeniably are living in an era of fast fashion and disposability right now. Martina Igni, climate change and sustainability journalist reports for earth.org that out of the 100 billion garments made annually, 92 million tonnes end up in landfills. She also states that the lifespans of clothes have shortened immensely, with the number of times a garment has been worn declining by approximately 36% in the past 15 years. In the face of how accepted throwaway culture has become, I view visible mending as an act of defiance. The deliberate choice to not only preserve your clothes, but to celebrate and flaunt it as something beautiful is–in my opinion–a commendable thing to do.


This article is a part of a magazine I made! You can see the full issue here!