'I loved defying the tyranny of fast fashion, one stitch at a time': Make do and mend is enjoying a creative revival

My own personal darning revival happened during the early days of covid. In the first lockdown, I’d cleaned everything that didn’t move and I don’t like banana bread, so I was looking for something else to do. During one of these cleaning sessions, I found a box of cashmere jumpers that had become victims of the moth. I’d put them away thinking that one day I’d mend them, but, in my heart, I knew this was a delaying tactic for their inevitable resting place: the bin.

Perhaps, now, they could be saved? I had some rudimentary darning skills taught to me by my grandmother. She and her four sisters, born during the First World War and becoming young wives and mothers during the Second, knew thrift like a family friend. They all had good hands. They could sew, crochet and knit — and, of course, they could darn. I always marvelled at how they made a hole in a sweater or sock vanish or, if it were too large for invisible mending, cover it with tiny, neat stitches.

I ordered darning wool online. Years ago, I’d interviewed a woman about keeping chickens and asked if she had advice for first-timers. ‘Get some ex-battery hens, because, however many mistakes you make, you’re still going to give them a better life,’ she said. I kept this in mind as I looked at my jumpers and cards of wool. However poor my darning might be, I was taking something I couldn’t wear and potentially transforming it into something I could.

To get started, I went to the internet’s knowledgeable grandmother, YouTube, and watched dozens of hypnotically soothing videos of women working magic with thread. I remembered how, if my own grandmother didn’t have a wooden darning mushroom to hold the fabric taut as she stitched, she used a light bulb. I gathered my sewing basket and a light bulb and got started. My efforts were imperfect, but immensely satisfying. I loved defying the tyranny of fast fashion, one stitch at a time.

In my research into techniques, some of the most exciting websites and videos transcended darning as a practical skill and turned it into art. This wasn’t your grandmother’s darning. It reminded me of the Japanese art of kintsugi, where breaks and cracks in porcelain are repaired with lacquer and gold, the mends visible because they honour the object’s history and renewal, embracing the flaws and enhancing its beauty.

Many of these new visible darning techniques come from Japan. Beyond Darning: Creative Mending Techniques by Hikaru Noguchi has clear diagrams of myriad stitches and mends, but it’s more than that. Hikaru is a textile designer and a leading light in the Japan Darning Association — the very existence of such an organisation tells you a lot — and many of the projects in her book are for brooches and badges to pin over holes. The brooches have names such as After Chaos and Ruins, and they serve a greater purpose than simply covering up holes. They use precious scraps of fabric from unsalvageable clothes, such as a baby’s dress or a favourite shirt, and gives them a second life.

British textile artist Alexandra Brinck — whose book Knit Repair: A Comprehensive Guide to Invisible Mending for Knitwear will be published by Quadrille/PRH this year — says: ‘The Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi is something that really appeals to me. In the same way that kintsugi is used to celebrate imperfections as part of an object’s history, using visible mending techniques on textiles is a wonderful way to enhance and elevate them. I especially love when a garment becomes an ongoing work in progress—my favourite pair of jeans is a textile ship of Theseus…

‘I’ve been passionate about mending all my life and, for the past few years, it’s been the main focus of my work,’ Alexandra continues. ‘Perhaps the most exciting part is the creative problem solving. Although a lot of repairs are fairly routine, the ones I love best are the really complicated commissions, where I start off with no idea of how to carry out the work — or even if it’s actually possible.’

When it comes to providing an item with a new lease of life, Alexandra believes that, often, it’s less about the physical object than keeping a memory alive. ‘People want me to restore garments that hold special meaning to them,’ she reflects. ‘Quite often, they’ll contact me to have a garment repaired as part of a grieving process (whether consciously or not). It feels very special to be allowed to be part of people’s lives in a small way.’ As we all attempt to stitch together our perfectly imperfect existences, darning honours what we once had and gives it a whole new life.

‘Beyond Darning: Creative Mending Techniques’ by Hikaru Noguchi is published by Quickthorn (£19.99).

This feature originally appeared in the February 18, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.