For me, summer is a time to refresh and recenter. Maybe it’s from my school days of summer vacation, or the lightness I feel with the warmer weather, or maybe it’s just because I’m a summer baby, I love to dust off old projects, mend clothes, reevaluate my goals and priorities and get ready for the colder months. Part of this process is picking apart my closet and fixing what needs mending, donating what I no longer need, or updating pieces that need a simple refresh.
This summer I’ll bring you along as I go through my closet and give some pieces some love and care. In this age of consumerism and fast fashion, I truly believe that mending is a radical act and it would be wonderful to see your updates and stories over the summer as well.
I already started with a vintage dress I picked up in Montreal during my spring break. You may have seen it on my Instagram story, if you missed it you can check it out in my FASHION highlights. It only needed some simple updates, removing the shoulder pads and detaching the slip, and now it’s the perfect summer dress. It’s amazing what a little tweak can do for the wearability of a garment. I enter a thrift store knowing that every piece could have potential, it’s just a matter of how much work I want to put into it. I try to find those pieces that just require a few easy tweaks, when it’s a bigger undertaking I tend to get a bit carried away.
From sneakers to fall jackets, I have a few more projects to work on this summer, including some where I plan to get creative and do some upcycling. Something about working with your hands is therapeutic, and it’s an amazing feeling to bring new life to a garment that fell to the back of your closet or just needed a little fix to become a staple in your wardrobe again. I’ll tackle some annoying closet mishaps like moth-eaten sweaters and small rips and tears as well as garment care issues like getting out stubborn stains or cleaning up a pair of well-worn shoes. I’m so excited! If it weren’t for graduate school, I’d be doing this all year round. At the risk of sounding cliché, it soothes my soul 🙂
As an added bonus – prolonging the life of a garment keeps waste from entering landfills, so fixing your garments is not only personally rewarding, but also environmentally conscious. It’s hard sometimes to go against the grain and choose not to participate in consumerism, and the worship of having more “stuff”. But the more you do it, I swear it gets easier and more natural. I hope you’ll share some of your own #SummerMending projects with me this summer! I’d love to get inspired by your projects and find new ways to make a garment feel like new again.