Repair Is Not a Trend—It’s a Skill We Must Reclaim

I feel a bit disoriented when I hear young professionals in sustainability, like the Marketing and Brand Partnerships Lead at SOJO, during the ReLondon webinar "The Power of Repair," claim that the role of brands and organisations is to make repair more appealing and cool. It feels like a missed opportunity. Instead of focusing on making repair trendy, brands and organisations should be transferring resources and knowledge to small communities—not just rebranding repair but enabling it.

In the context of London Repair Week, a week-long event launched in 2020 by ReLondon to promote repair and reuse, I find myself reflecting on what is truly needed. After decades of activism and campaigning for sustainable and ethical fashion, we have opened markets for big corporations to second-hand, vintage, and resale, yet without real changes in consumption habits. This cycle repeats itself: big players swoop in, repackage sustainability as a lifestyle trend, and leave the actual work of repair underfunded and overlooked.

Think about this: after swearing that I wouldn’t dedicate another minute of my life to volunteering for sustainability causes, I now find myself in a conundrum. My designer heart wants to create, but my awareness of sustainability convinces me that doing so is a selfish act in a world drowning in material things. Despite living in the information age, many people know nothing about materials, their origins, or their value.

With my personal interest in fashion and sustainability, I have been self-training in beadwork using needle techniques—similar to those of my native Colombian indigenous communities. This effort is my way of resisting the temptation to buy stunning but underpriced work, where neither time, materials, nor ancestral craftsmanship are fairly valued. Through this journey, I have realised the immense time, effort, and creativity required to make these pieces. More than ever, I understand how much an original piece should cost, even in its country of origin—a price that only Global North travellers and wealthy women can afford. The profit margins of third-party traders shape what we see in fashion retail websites and ventes privées, making these pieces even more exclusive. The real profits go to middlemen and traders, and what we see in fashion retail today is a distortion of true value.

Now, back to my main reflection. I wanted to volunteer at repair cafés in London, assuming that repair should include more than just electrical appliances and clothes. But what about our precious costume jewellery? These pieces rarely end up in charity piles because they are real treasures. Recently, I reached out to a repair café in Brixton to see if there were incentives to at least subsidise materials—basic spare parts like clasps, jump rings, and beads, ranging from ceramic to glass and precious metals. I found out that not even these basic resources are subsidised.

With limited time and, obviously, resources, how is this all supposed to happen? Immersing myself in the conscious act of making has taught me that knowing how to construct something enables true repair. This ties back to one of the first lessons in design education: the Bauhaus method of deconstruction as a pathway to creation. If brands and corporations truly want to support repair, they should facilitate knowledge transfer—not just about repair but about how things are made in the first place. But that is impossible when brands today specialise in outsourcing production and have no understanding of the carbon footprint of their components before they reach assembly lines.

If that is the case, then let’s at least demand that brands and organisations subsidise repair cafés so they can continue their crucial grassroots work. The current system is utterly broken, and only through local, community-driven repair initiatives can we hope for any sort of resilience and regeneration.

Additionally, we need to give leadership opportunities to seasoned professionals who have dedicated years of critical thought to these issues. Too often, real advocacy work is hijacked by brands, turning movements into empty slogans plastered onto T-shirts.

I also believe that another narrative brought up during the webinar, though presented positively, further reinforced my critical reflections on the challenges within the repair industry. It is becoming increasingly difficult to attract and create new roles, as the industry seems to be looking downward, making it hard for people to become repairers. How can someone aspire to specialise in repair if they haven’t first learned the craft of making? Moreover, how can we create jobs for those already at the bottom of the exploitation chain—such as refugees and immigrants, who are often rejected and criminalised by societies like the UK? These marginalised communities bring a wealth of knowledge and skills that should be acknowledged and nurtured. Yet, instead of being embraced, they face alienation. This feels like yet another part of a system that exploits and capitalises on the most vulnerable. It is a cycle that urgently needs to be broken!.

To conclude on a hopeful note: if we truly want the repair movement to thrive, we need to decouple it from the waste-less, reuse-repair-recycle mindset. Instead, we must reconnect it to the art of making—done consciously, ethically, and with skill. This shift will spark creativity, resourcefulness, and, most importantly, equip future generations with real skills—skills that are currently lost in the circular economy mindset, which prioritises business growth over true sustainability.

If we truly want to reclaim repair as a meaningful act, we need to look beyond trends and towards systemic change. This means challenging dominant narratives, supporting grassroots initiatives, and ensuring that repair remains an accessible skill rather than a commodified service. For those interested in exploring these ideas further, books like Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics, Naomi Klein’s No Logo, and Jason Hickel’s Less is More offer powerful critiques of mainstream sustainability. Likewise, works like Otto von Busch and Hazel Clark’s Fashion Activism delve into how making and mending can become acts of resistance. Repair isn’t just about fixing objects—it’s about rethinking the systems that make them disposable in the first place.