As people become more conscious of the effect the fashion industry has on our planet, mending and repurposing old clothes has become more popular. I follow a great channel on Instagram called the SeamUK that shows how they repair usually designer items for their customers. More than likely though, you aren’t looking to keep your Chanel ballet flats for another season. So is repairing your old mall clothes worth it? I would argue yes. If you love the piece, it cost (to you) a lot of money, or the brand is discontinued it’s worth looking at. In my case, I have had this black Gap T-shirt for over 10 years. It has a silhouette typical of the time-cut close to the body, longer length, and a thicker neckline. If you’ve gone shopping lately trying to find a non-boxy, non-crop T-shirt, you’ve probably found it difficult. Hence, wanting to hold on to this shirt. In addition, as much as I’ve always complained at the quality of women’s clothing, a comparison between that shirt and a recently purchased Madewell T-shirt showed the Gap shirt was made of thicker fabric, echoing the claim that vintage clothing, even from relatively recently, was of better quality. The problem though is that it finally developed a hole, and was badly faded. The hole was an easy fix, but would a new dye job make it look like new? Let’s see.
I wish I had taken the picture from the same angle because my shadow is distorting things, but the left is the before and right the after picture. In person, the shirt was badly faded in patches, almost white looking. The dye came out even though, and I was pleased I could put this shirt back in my closet rather than the trash.
The Dupery 