The small mending

Most of what we sell has been worn for ten or twenty years before it arrives at the studio. By that point a piece has small failures: a hem coming loose, a button hanging by one thread, a snag near the underarm that an iron has flattened but not closed. These are not problems. They are how the piece knows it has been loved.

The mending we do is small. Tooth-gem small. Five things, in the order we usually do them:

Re-anchor the buttons. A button stitch from 1998 is twenty-eight years old. We undo the original thread, replace it with new cotton, and tie a small knot on the inside of the fabric. The button looks identical. The piece will hold for another twenty years.

Close the loose hem. Hems usually fail at the back where the wearer’s heels catch the fabric. We hand-stitch a slip stitch that doesn’t show on the outside. The piece reads as new even though the inside is older than most of our customers.

Patch the lining, not the shell. A lining tear is invisible to anyone except the wearer. We patch the lining with matching cotton from our own scrap drawer, never with the new lining you’d find at the haberdashery. A 1999 lining wants a 1999 patch.

Wash by hand, twice. Once with cold water and a teaspoon of wool wash. Once with cold water and nothing. Then flat-dry on a cotton towel for two days. Most “vintage smells” are not in the fabric; they are in the residue of someone else’s detergent.

Steam, never iron. A handheld steamer at 12 inches. The fibres relax, the wrinkles fall, the piece remembers its shape. An iron at this age will burn the fibres before it presses them.

We do this in a small flat in Bangkok, mostly at night, mostly with the wrong songs on. Every piece is found, washed, mended, photographed. Sixteen at a time. When she’s gone, she’s gone.

— Sorrymama, 444