Fashion fix: exploring garment repair from a critical fashion practice perspective

Contemporary garment repair can be characterised as creative resistance to the proliferation of mass production and fast fashion and is practiced by amateurs, professionals, artists and activists. Mending is an excellent means of increasing the active, worn lifetime of clothing. While garment repair does appear to be currently fashionable, the ways in which it constitutes fashion design remain unclear. The aim of Fashion Fix was to use practice based research to explore the field of fashion design repair. Two creative practice events, framed as examples of critical and speculative design were undertaken during 2020 as part of the public programs of local fashion and contemporary craft festivals in Melbourne, Australia. Reflective methods including research for design, making, documenting and writing were used to examine the ways that fashion designers can engage in and contribute to garment repair practice. The playful and lively examples discussed illustrate ways that fashion designers can conceive of repair that resonate with established approaches to fashion design. Conversely they also suggest ways in which designers might disrupt assumed approaches to fashion design that defuture. The work produced through Fashion Fix places repair at the beginning of the design process, and as such could be considered an example of broken world thinking. It also suggests that engaging in the practice of repair is one way for designers to come to terms with garment use as a central principle of fashion practice.