Tiffany (00:02)
Hi Kat

Kat (00:02)
Hi Tiffany, how's it going?

Tiffany (00:04)
Not too shabby, how are you?

Kat (00:07)
I think you have a cat near you that is purring and being cute.

Tiffany (00:12)
Yeah, she went to eat, so hopefully she forgets I exist, only because she's gonna probably start attacking my hand or something. Yeah, she's the one that it's actually so cute, but once in a while she'll decide that if I don't pet her right then she will like pass away. She'll like, yeah, she'll like lose her soul and just so aggressive about it. Meow, meow, meow.

Kat (00:15)
⁓ yeah, it's always the fun. yeah, she's in a mood.

yeah, she's going to die. ⁓

you

Tiffany (00:40)
like

running across the house like, batman. It's so sweet. Except when I'm trying to do something, like, oh god, OK. But it only lasts like five minutes, so it's OK. It's a good break. So I was going to start this episode with a statistic. And now I'm like, not so sure. I'll just throw it out there and see what you think. So I found this statistic from earth.org.

Kat (00:43)
⁓ I love it. Annoying, but sweet.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay.

Tiffany (01:08)
that the average US consumer, United States specifically, throws away 81.5 pounds of clothes every year. But that's like 160, well AI told me, that's like 160, yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry, 160 to 300 pieces of clothing.

Kat (01:22)
Okay, brilliant then.

And that's average, though.

Tiffany (01:30)
average and I'm like

Well, I saw like a Reddit conversation about it too, and they're like, who the frick is throwing this kind of clothing away? Like, I wear my stuff to rags. ⁓ I think it's.

Kat (01:40)
I know.

or I'll

even keep it if I'm not wearing it. It's just sitting there.

Tiffany (01:48)
Yeah.

Yeah, it's wild. So I think this there are some outliers. I think there's probably some something weird going on here with this number. But so it's an average. But still, it tells us that sort of paints a picture that there's a lot of clothing being thrown away in the world. So to

try to reduce this waste, some people are turning to an old school trick. Repairing or mending clothes.

Kat (02:21)
why is that fricking old school too? It's so funny that it's like, have you tried cooking at home? You know, like your grandmother did and it's like, what? Yeah.

Tiffany (02:24)
I know, isn't it?

I

Yeah,

yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, to be fair, there are a lot of people who have continued this forever, ⁓ it sort of went out of fashion and we'll talk about that in a little bit. ⁓ now it's back. Now repairing stuff is super trendy again. ⁓ The hashtag visible mending, which we'll talk about visible repair, has more than 20 million views on TikTok.

So it's in tis the season of repair. Today we're looking at one specific shop which has the best name. It's called Amazing Garment Repair. And the types of the mending that they offer, how anyone across the country can use them, how much it costs, and whether it really is as amazing as it sounds. Welcome to greening up my eyes.

Kat (03:05)
I guess, yeah.

Tiffany (03:35)
you

We got some dancing going on over there. Love it. ⁓ Well, that was good. I actually wrote the intro this time. That was nice.

Kat (03:42)
Yeah, it's party time.

Yay!

We're back on track. The end of the season. That's the time to do it. Yeah.

Tiffany (03:52)
Yeah, we got it.

So yeah, who are we, Kat? Welcome anybody who's never listened before or who has?

Kat (04:00)
Yeah, welcome to,

we are greening up my act. We are two marketing professionals with a lot of skepticism and interest in research and getting down to the bottom of sustainability claims. Cause we're also interested in not, not actively destroying the planet and perhaps doing things that actively undestroy the planet if we can as individuals and

Tiffany (04:26)
Mm-hmm.

Kat (04:29)
wondering what actually works and what's just a load of green hooey. So yeah, that's our M.O.

Tiffany (04:32)
Yes.

Yeah, I love it. You're going to hear my cat playing with her little ball toy in the back. It's fine. Yeah, that's who we are. Welcome to everybody. Real quick, run through my sources. Kind like you last week, I didn't really use all of these technically, but I did read them and they sort of informed my thinking.

Kat (04:39)
I love it also.

This is just the open tabs of your mind. Yeah. no,

Tiffany (04:56)
Yes, yeah.

So I use obviously the amazing garment repair website. I used Yelp. I use Wirecutter. The New York Times had a different article that I looked at. This journal, it's just called sustainability from what I could tell. Just a journal. I use...

a website and Instagram of this company called Eva Joan, just sort of as a comparison.

Kat (05:24)
There she goes.

Tiffany (05:28)
God. I also used ⁓ earth.org twice. I used two different ⁓ articles from them. And then UNEP. What is that again? United Nations? Anyway, UNEP. god. I'm going to feel so stupid. I got to figure that out.

Kat (05:48)
I don't know what it's saying, but yeah.

I'll look it up. Keep going.

Tiffany (05:53)
feel like an idiot. Yeah, United Nations Environment Program.

Kat (05:56)
Idiot.

Oh, okay. Duh. We're gonna guess that ourselves, right? Okay.

Tiffany (05:59)
That's yeah, yeah, I did get the

And then another website called repair what you wear calm so

Kat (06:07)
Ooh, just what it says it is.

Tiffany (06:09)
good branding. Obvious branding. All right, so what are we talking about today? We are talking about Amazing Garment Repair. It is reweaving and alteration shop in Kansas, just outside of Kansas City. And I'm really excited about them for a number of reasons.

owned by a woman named Tammy Camp Schroeder. She is a master French weaver, which I'll get into. Nobody knows what that is, I'm sure, but I'll get into it a little bit because it's really interesting. I added up her experience, and I think she has over 20 years of experience there was a really old video where she said she'd been working for 13 years on it.

Kat (06:37)
⁓

Tiffany (06:56)
I was like, OK, 13 plus 100.

Kat (06:57)
So she's like

my age.

Tiffany (07:00)
Yeah, I don't know how old she was. I don't know if she saw it when she was like 20 or anything. On their website, they say, old isn't a bad word in our book. We are passionate about repairing old vintage antique garments because they hold memories, meaning, and life in them. Instead of throwing out a damaged garment that you love, you can bring it to us and give it a second life. Yeah, so I love that.

Kat (07:03)
20. Okay. Yeah.

boy. Okay.

Tiffany (07:25)
you can mail them your garments to repair from anywhere in the United States. Or you can visit in person.

Kat (07:33)
Next time I'm in Kansas.

Tiffany (07:34)
Yes, exactly. Next time you're in Kansas City. Although, I looked at a picture of their little town and it looks really cute. So, I don't know. Totally.

Kat (07:41)
pretty cute. Yeah. Middle of America is underrated a lot. think some of it's pretty

scenic and the people tend to be nice and you know, there might be issues maybe but I... Yeah.

Tiffany (07:50)
Yeah.

There's issues everywhere, but

yeah, totally underrated. Like Eureka Springs, I was just reading about. I've never been, but apparently it's like haven for queer folk. That's what I've heard.

Kat (08:00)
I love Eureka Springs. ⁓

It's a destination. Yeah. Did I tell you

about my very interesting grandmother, my very conservative, you know, country doctor's wife, Southern Baptist grandmother? We would have like a family reunion in a place and my grandmother would pick the place every like two years for a while when I was a kid. And

Tiffany (08:16)
No.

Kat (08:33)
Somehow she would always pick the gayest place in America. Like, I don't know how. She would just be like, this looks, I love this little town. And she'd pick it, and we'd all go, and it'd be the gayest place in America, which was like, fantastic. Yeah, I guess she was like, mm-hmm. But yeah, Eureka Springs, we did Eureka Springs. We did Provincetown, Massachusetts, I think. Like, the gay havens. It was like, cute little, you know.

Tiffany (08:38)
my god.

Subconsciously, she knew.

my gosh.

Okay.

That's amazing! That is so funny.

Kat (09:02)
But they're cute towns. They're super cute towns. So, yeah.

Tiffany (09:04)
Yeah, and

they probably just feel like welcoming and open. So that's why she's like...

Kat (09:08)
Yeah, it was a lot

of like for a Southern Baptist girl who's kind of sheltered to see like women making out in public. You're like, when I was, it wasn't cool when I was eight yet. Katy Perry hadn't kissed a girl yet. So it was always kind of like, what's happening over there? You know, but.

Tiffany (09:15)
Yes, yeah.

Yeah.

Yes, yeah, that's interesting. I kind of love that. yeah, she needed to, she knew she needed to open her eyes even if she wouldn't admit it.

Kat (09:30)
It was.

I

mean, I don't think she was ever openly a bigot. think it was just something she never, she would never talk about.

Tiffany (09:42)
Okay.

Okay, so back to amazing garment repair. I'm trying to figure out where I am. yeah, so other businesses actually, according to their reviews, like Joss or Joss A Bank, how do you say that? That like, yeah, like that insanely, I always think of the SNL skit about using their pants for towels and stuff. Cause they give you like, you know.

Kat (09:48)
Yes.

yeah, Joseph, it's Joseph A. Bank as my father says it.

Tiffany (10:11)
10 for the price of one. And then local dry cleaners, actually refer their customers to this shop because they're good at what they do. Yeah. This is going to be a little bit of a different episode because the shop itself, like their website, is pretty bare bones, first off, because it's

Kat (10:13)
Yeah.

cool.

Nobody else does it. Yeah.

I'm looking it up now.

Amazing repair.

Tiffany (10:39)
Yeah, I mean, they're just

like a little mom and pop shop. They're not really making eco-friendly claims. So instead, because normally what we do in the second portion is ask like, kind of like walk through what eco-friendly claims these companies are making, they don't really make any. So I kind of looked into like clothing repair in general. And

Kat (10:58)
Right.

Tiffany (11:07)
what other people are saying about clothing repair. And then I wanted to talk, sort of define how they're repairing these clothes and all of their different techniques, because it's really fascinating. So what are others saying about repairing clothes and how that's more sustainable? The big one is that it extends the life of the garment and it slows down fashion production. Yeah, which I guess is true. mean,

I think that's sort of a downstream thing, like if...

Because I'm not an industry insider, so I don't know how much production actually keeps up with demand because it seems like everything is sort of overproduced so much. But it can't hurt, right, to not buy that extra clothing or whatever. Now your dogs are barking. So actually 2.6 million tons of returned clothes alone.

Kat (11:51)
Yeah. Yeah.

Right.

Right. Yeah, I know.

Tiffany (12:11)
in the US end up in the landfills. That was from 2020.

Kat (12:14)
See, that's,

and like most of that's like Amazon where you buy three sizes to try one on and then send the other two back and they get thrown away. Yeah.

Tiffany (12:20)
Yes. Yeah,

and apparently it's cheaper to just throw it away than it is to resell it. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, it's like all these hauls and all this like, yeah. So there's clearly an issue here, right? We should really be slowing that down and repairing what we have instead of throwing it away, getting something new. Oops, wrong size. Return it. Trash. So earth.

Kat (12:25)
and resell it yeah. It's so nuts.

Tiffany (12:49)
org says they point out that with fast fashion repairs might seem like more trouble than they're worth.

Kat (12:58)
it costs more to get this five dollar t-shirt repaired than it yeah

Tiffany (13:04)
Yes, exactly. Like Charlie got a hole in the knees of like her cheap leggings. I still repaired it because the rest of the legging is still good, right? But there was a moment where I was like, should I bother? Like these were $5. But I did because she's still going to be able to use them for another six months until she freaking grows out of them. But,

Kat (13:17)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Tiffany (13:32)
Yeah, I mean, think that's the idea is like, bought this for $5. Is this worth even bothering to repair? And also, another really interesting thing about the sort of repairing in general is that during the gender equality movement of the 1960s, that kind of task, like the domestic task, like mending or cooking or whatever, they became sort of like symbols of inequity.

Kat (13:40)
Right.

Tiffany (14:01)
So it was sort of this, think people kind of gave up the idea of mending and like lost that art.

Kat (14:08)
Yes.

Yeah, I mean, it it it's a sad thing because what it was was

Instead of elevating tasks that have been relegated to women that were unpaid labor What we did was say well if it's unpaid it doesn't generate power for you, so it's not worth doing which like My mother didn't keep house as clean as her mother did, you know, cuz it was like this is not a valuable task It doesn't generate money, right? And it was a rebellion to be like, yeah, I'm not gonna have freaking vacuum every day, you know

Tiffany (14:30)
Yes.

Wow, that's so interesting.

Yeah.

Kat (14:48)
I'm not going to be house, you know, and my ex-husband's mother was the same way. He's like, yeah, we, just didn't prioritize the house cleaning, you know? ⁓ but then it's, you know, if, if, if the women's equality movement, which I don't believe in equality because women and men are different and have different needs. if that had been, what we would have done is just demand.

Tiffany (14:59)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kat (15:17)
pay for the unpaid labor, right? That is still useful and necessary. But yeah, we, it's like, we just decided that it wasn't in lost. And yeah, it's the same with home cooking. And now instead of it being like, well, men can cook too. And all this unpaid labor should be paid. What it is is nobody does it. And so we all lost like the joy of cooking meals together at home and

Tiffany (15:20)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah. Yes.

The health aspects.

Kat (15:46)
Mending our clothes, yes.

And now we're working ourselves to death so we can make money being outside of the house to pay for fast food and yep.

Tiffany (15:52)
make money to pay for eating out and for new clothes. Yeah.

Yeah, it's so true. It's so true. Oh my God. It's crazy. It is. It is. Did you ever read?

Kat (16:03)
It's a bummer. I get it. I get why it happened, but it is a huge bummer.

Tiffany (16:11)
Pretty controversial, don't know why can't think of it. Yes, thank you. Okay. was, yeah, it was interesting because it was like, her sort of main thesis was that women, like we, in the 60s, we got all these conveniences like dishwashers and microwaves and stuff like that, but that the work still expanded to the time that you had.

Kat (16:14)
The feminine mystique. I never read Betty Friedan. I never did. I read around it, you know.

Yes,

yep, you were expected to do more.

Tiffany (16:41)
So

yeah, and like you kind of made up work that you didn't really need to do. So I think that certainly isn't the ideal, but to lose it completely is so sad. Cause it's like, I remember watching my grandma iron a pair of trousers. My God, that woman was a fricking pro. I mean that they were like fresh, fresh.

Kat (17:04)
my God, Sean? Doesn't know

how to iron. Yeah. Yeah. I do. It's so much trouble. I don't like to do it. Yeah. I'm just like, ⁓ my linens wrinkled. Deal with it. Yeah. Yeah.

Tiffany (17:10)
No, I barely do. I mean, I do, but like barely. No, I never would. Yeah, this is a linen shirt and it's wrinkled and it's fine.

Yeah, but it's like watching her in her element like that was just so impressive. It was an art. She got such straight lines on those pants and they may have even been jeans for all I remember. And I'm just like, this is crazy.

Kat (17:28)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yes, I know, right? It's an art

and it's, it's nice. I, my mom was a really good seamstress, like, and she didn't do it as much after, like she made our Halloween costumes, you know, every year and we were little girls. And one of the stories, one of our family friends told it, her celebration of life last year was that like she had

Tiffany (17:45)
that's awesome.

⁓

Kat (18:03)
bought a wedding dress and it didn't fit right. And she came over to my mom like in tears and my mom was like, just put it on, her once over and was like, do you trust me? And she was like, yeah. And my mom just like made a dress, know, like out of this dress that didn't fit her, like reformatted it. it was, and also made me and my sisters like the little flower girl dresses and made all the bridesmaids dresses for the wedding too, like.

Tiffany (18:19)
Whoa.

my

gosh, that's amazing.

Kat (18:32)
Yeah, I had forgotten about that,

but that was just something my mom could just do, you know?

Tiffany (18:36)
Yeah. Yeah. And it's, so impressive. And yeah, my grandma was also a quilter. So she sewed stuff and quilted.

Kat (18:41)
Yeah.

Yeah, my mom cooked, yeah,

she, she crocheted and yeah.

Tiffany (18:49)
Yeah,

yeah, it's just like, I think it's these things are coming back, but

Kat (18:56)
They're totally hip. mean, knitting was a huge feminist thing in the early 2000s. Stitching bitch and stuff. Yeah.

Tiffany (19:00)
Mm-hmm. Yeah,

yeah, totally. The problem I have with knitting as a hobby, and maybe I don't see it,

Kat (19:05)
Yeah.

Tiffany (19:09)
Maybe this isn't true even, but I feel like if you knit, you're gonna make a bunch of hats and a bunch of scarves that maybe you don't need. I mean, maybe you can give them away as gifts, but.

Kat (19:16)
And that's it.

Yeah,

think that's the thing. All of my friends, all of my girlfriends probably knitted it in some way. So I have all these scarves and hats and things. And it's like, if you, yeah, which is nice and you got to practice somehow, but it's like, if I was knitting, I would want to make like really nice sweaters or something, you know, like that's what I.

Tiffany (19:25)
Right.

yeah, that would be cool.

That's true, a sweater would be more useful. I just, may, I know, I have knit one scarf and I do still have it and I still use it. So I shouldn't, I'm speaking out of my ass because it is still used,

Kat (19:38)
but it takes so much work. Yeah.

Yeah,

I have this problem where if I'm not good at something, I quit. Yeah. So I like tried knitting with my sisters and stuff and it, I have a joke about, there was this scientific study they did where they gave spiders different drugs and like saw how they reacted. And there's like a joke about it on SNL or something, but like the photos of the actual study are like, you know, the spider on acid.

Tiffany (19:53)
Yeah.

yeah.

Kat (20:15)
couldn't do this. The spider on weed like quit halfway through and fell asleep and the spider on caffeine just couldn't make a pattern at all. Like it just was like, it couldn't get the spoken wheel pattern, you know, at all. And so it was just like, you know, and I was like, that's how I knit. It just looks like a spider on caffeine. It's just holes. There's no discernible pattern. There's, makes no sense. And yeah, anyway, so that's me knitting. Anyway, tangent, tangent, tangent.

Tiffany (20:25)
⁓ huh.

Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah,

know I'm not I'm not. I'm just yeah, I don't have the patience for that kind of thing, I think, or the interest. But I mean, a lot of people are getting back into it, which is really cool. I would say it's I'm going to hazard a guess that it's mostly women.

Kat (21:02)
Yeah, well, Sean picked up, I have his, he started hand knitting, so not with needles, but with his hands. This blanket here, and he never finished it. Yeah, like it's, there are men doing it.

Tiffany (21:08)
cool. You know, I actually know a guy who does embroidery. So

yeah. Okay. I'm just guessing here, but yeah. Yeah. Which is fine. It is what it is. so I wanted to talk about like the different types of repairs that these shops do because it just is so interesting to me and it really is an art. one of them, which I think

Kat (21:16)
Less, I'm guessing less than women, but yeah.

Okay.

Tiffany (21:35)
I would classify as the most simple, but still artful is called visible mending. And maybe you've seen this around. Yeah, it is what it sounds like. You can very clearly intentionally tell that it's been mended or altered. So you might have a patch on it. You might have different colored.

Kat (21:42)
Okay, yes.

Definitely, yeah.

Tiffany (22:01)
yarn that you sew the hole up with to make it obvious that it's been sewn or knitted or whatever. Or you have just like a patch of different fabric slapped on So that shop that I talked about that I looked at their Instagram and their website, it's called Eva Joan. They're based in New York City and they do visible mending.

Kat (22:09)
Yeah.

Tiffany (22:29)
And their Instagram is kind of interesting to look at because it's like, that's so trendy. It's just like everything that they do is so cool and I would never buy from them. But I think if anybody was into that, like very trendy, it's kind of like shabby chic, but even that's kind of out, but it's like, just look at their Instagram because it's so, it's really cool what they do. But I do think.

Kat (22:35)
yeah.

Yeah.

I'm looking them up now.

Tiffany (22:58)
So I know I read that the owners of that shop don't have a background in tailoring. They have a background in like fashion and something else, but not like actually making clothing. And so to me, it makes sense why they would have gone the visible mending route because it seems like a little bit easier. I mean, it's still very artsy fartsy.

Kat (23:04)
okay.

I see it.

Yeah, there's like a Prada shoe with like pearls, custom pearls sewn on it and...

Tiffany (23:24)
Yeah, they'll add

stuff and change the silhouettes and change the style of things. And they do really cool stuff. But I think it makes sense, like I said, that they would have gone the visible mending route because they probably, at least in the beginning, weren't really confident in their sewing, I'm assuming. But I'm putting that on them, so I don't know. But yeah, they have some cool stuff.

Kat (23:33)
Yeah.

Tiffany (23:53)
So that's visible mending. are they? Are they? I thought they were only in, because I read an article that they were only in New York.

Kat (23:53)
Yeah.

they're in Austin.

Apparently.

They might have,

they might've had a pop- ⁓ holy crap. They're right down the street from me. I know I've seen it. Maybe they had a pop-up here or something. that's hilarious.

Tiffany (24:08)
What? ⁓

Maybe. That's so

Kat (24:15)
But they're close to my house. Yeah. How funny.

Tiffany (24:16)
That's so interesting.

That's crazy. Yeah, I thought they were only in New York, but OK, yeah.

Kat (24:21)
There's stuff.

hilarious.

Yeah, well, so, okay, maybe I'll take some of my stuff to them.

Tiffany (24:28)
Yeah, if you like, it's definitely like a, they have a style. So if you like their stuff, then yeah, I think that would be a really cool option. So the amazing garment repair shop does not do that kind of visible, they kind of do the opposite of the visible mending.

Kat (24:34)
Yeah.

Okay, yeah, they do like legitimate mending.

Tiffany (24:52)
I mean, yeah, if you want to, yeah, it depends on, I don't want to like de-legitimatize the visible stuff because it's also really cool, but they do, I would say the more Yeah, like old school version of mending where they're trying to make it look like the original and they use all of these different skills to try to do that. So one of them, one of the techniques is reweaving.

Kat (25:00)
Yeah.

Classical, maybe.

Okay.

Tiffany (25:18)
And

there's two different kinds of reweaving. One is French weaving, which the owner is a master French weaver. ⁓ This is mostly used for small snags. the weaver, and I took all of this ⁓ language from their website because it just summed it up so well. The weaver takes the threads from the garment, like extra threads from the garment itself, and they use like hidden seams or unseen areas from the garment.

and they

take threads and then they replace each broken thread one by one.

Kat (25:55)
Wow okay that's wild yeah that is and to make it so it doesn't wow okay wow

Tiffany (25:57)
So it's an art.

Yeah.

And they follow the weave of the garment using magnifying glasses and a special needle. And it usually produces, they say, invisible miraculous results, which they have some before and after pictures on their website. And some of it is amazing. Some of it you're like, whoa, I cannot believe that that had, like you can't even tell where the hole used to be.

Kat (26:29)
Yeah, that's wild.

Tiffany (26:31)
Some of it is a little bit more obvious. I think it just sort of depends how tricky the stitch job is, it's still like if you didn't know that it was repaired. Yeah, yes. Yeah. The other kind of reweaving is overweaving where you actually take a piece like a sort of a chunk or a patch of the fabric from the same garment.

Kat (26:45)
If you weren't looking for it, you wouldn't see it. Yeah.

Tiffany (26:59)
if there is a hidden area on the garment that you can find a patch. And then you match the direction and the pattern of the damaged area. And then you use a special latch needle and magnifying glasses again, and then weave that fabric piece into a blocked area around the damage. And then the cutout area you replace with lining. So yeah, so it was really interesting. And actually this was one of the most impressive.

Kat (27:23)
Okay.

Tiffany (27:28)
before and afters for me because they had like this collar of a jacket, like a suit jacket that had been ripped and it was just a really big rip and they had patched it and it was just like, whoa, I don't think you would ever be able to tell that that had been patched. Yes, it's so cool. And then there's also re-knitting. So that's where broken yarn is.

Kat (27:44)
Wow, that takes, that's artistry, yeah.

Tiffany (27:56)
pulled back and locked into place and then a new piece of yarn is stolen from the sweater, usually from the side seams. And then that new thread is knitted into the sweater. And it says it usually looks as good as new and sometimes it doesn't look exactly new, but you can't really tell. ⁓ And then if they can't find yarn on the garment, then they'll try to find an external piece.

that matches the colors well as they can. And then the final way that they repair garments is with hand mending. They use this for like, basically hand sewing, which is like gonna be so much better than my hand sewing because mine is so bad. You can see that. I know, I know, and that's okay, you know, we're still trying.

Kat (28:40)
I know, yeah. Chunky, messy, uneven, I know. I can't sew buttons on, I'm so bad.

Sewing a cheap button back on an express coat is not a big deal.

Tiffany (28:57)
Yes,

exactly. But they say that you can't actually see the stitches on the top of the fabric, which is so impressive. I can't even imagine.

Kat (29:09)
Yeah, that's skill. That is skill.

Tiffany (29:10)
Yes,

yes. I'm usually just like screw it. There's a stitch and very obvious.

Kat (29:15)
Yeah, just... hole

is closed. ⁓

Tiffany (29:19)
Exactly. ⁓ So those are the different ways that they use this mending or the different sort of ways that they can mend different types of fabrics, which is it's so impressive to me that you can like mend a suit jacket like that. It's awesome. You kind of wouldn't think about it. And I've heard of like re-knitting, not that phrase really, but I know that you can re-knit sweaters, but

Kat (29:37)
you know, that's really

Tiffany (29:50)
Yeah, I kind of wouldn't know how or where to go or where to start even. So yeah, it's really cool.

Kat (29:55)
Yeah.

Did you have a break written in? Let's do that. Yeah. I was like, ⁓ now's the time.

Tiffany (30:02)
I didn't, but we should take one. Yeah.

Yes. There we go.

All right, sweet. So I don't have, no, I guess I do have more. So.

Finally, not finally, next, is this something a normal person could do or afford? So I would say if you wanted to mend your clothes and you wanted to use this service or this type of service, I would say yes, and I'll go over pricing in a bit. If you want to do repair work on your own, of course that's a little bit more complicated. You have to have some skills. Well, you don't. I mean, we don't.

Kat (30:35)
Mm-hmm.

I I mean, yeah, if we're doing visible repair that I don't care about it looking like the original whatever. Yeah.

Tiffany (31:05)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the one to start with.

Yeah, that's what I appreciate kind of about Eva Joan is it they're not trying to hide it.

Kat (31:18)
Yeah, it's like, ⁓ is it kitsuke, the Japanese ⁓ art where a broken bowl is glued back together with gold so that you can see the cracks? It's kind of like that. It adds an element to it that I appreciate. I wasn't saying that it's not a legitimate form of. It is a legitimate art form and a legitimate form of repair. Yeah, it's just different. Yeah.

Tiffany (31:25)
Yes. Yes.

Mm-hmm. It is.

Yeah, just different.

So the journal Sustainability had a 2022...

journal article I don't know I don't know what these are called but anyway it had a study basically on like the

Kat (31:51)
Yeah, article, yeah.

Tiffany (32:01)
sort of like repair and who is willing to repair their clothes. They found some key enablers and some main barriers for people. The things that will enable a person to repair their clothing is sort of like a bunch of things you could guess, but

One of them was an ability to focus during DIY tasks, is so funny. Dynamic social norms, beliefs about the benefits of repairing, so understanding that it's actually good. And because there was another study that said, talked about how much joy it can bring you, which I totally believe. Yes. Yes. Or even just going somewhere and getting it done. It's like, yeah, I did that. I I resold my boots and I love the fact that I did that.

Kat (32:30)
Okay, that's fair. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm pride. Yeah. Like look at what I did.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Tiffany (32:56)
So

if you have an emotional attachment to the clothing, obviously that helps. And then having routines and habits of repairing, then you're more likely, go figure. Yeah. So they talk about some main barriers for people. One is a lack of skills, go figure. Two is poor product design, fast fashion. Three is unaffordability of repair services.

Kat (33:05)
That makes sense. Yeah.

Yes, fair.

Especially if they're good.

Tiffany (33:23)
Yes. And then four is.

Kat (33:25)
Or materials.

mean, if you're, there's one reason I don't, I can't knit a sweater is because yarn is so fricking expensive, you know? So yeah.

Tiffany (33:30)
Yeah, it really is. Yeah,

it's true. And then incongruence with identity. So I want to go through these a little, like a little bit quickly. So if you have a lack of skills and that's stopping you from wanting to repair things or being able to repair things, you can visit that website, Repair What You Wear, and they have sort of tutorial videos on different types of items and they show you exactly

Kat (33:38)
Okay.

Tiffany (33:58)
Different kind of stitches, you can repair, they have a whole video on big hole, repairing big holes in Lycra. So like in your leggings, repairing running shoes. have videos on repairing chairs and jeans, on knitwear, on coats and jackets. So they have like series of videos. They don't have, I wouldn't say they have like a ton, a ton of videos, but they do have quite a few. And I think it would be a really good foundation or just use YouTube. Yes. Yes. Yeah.

Kat (34:06)
⁓

And YouTube. YouTube has a lot. Yeah, yeah.

Tiffany (34:29)
Or you can take a class in person or online. Like I searched and found a bunch of options just on like basics of sewing. I found a bunch near me. ⁓ The other barrier, poor product design. That's just another case for buying better clothes when it's possible. Because like we said, if it's a $5 shirt, you're not going to want to take the time. You're going to be less likely to want to. So.

The next barrier, unaffordability of repair services. So this can be legitimate. The prices at Eva Joan, which is that little visible repair shop, they have a variety of prices, but they start at $45 for a patch job, which, yeah, it's not, that's not bad. Yeah. I mean, if you think about it, it depends what you're repairing, I guess, but.

Kat (35:14)
Okay. Plus shipping. mean, yeah, that's not bad. It's

Tiffany (35:27)
Would you spend around $45 for a new thing? I don't know, like for a new pair of jeans? Maybe.

Kat (35:30)
Right.

From the thrift store, they'd be less than that, yeah.

Tiffany (35:35)
Yeah. And then actually, Amazing Garment Repair is a little bit more reasonable. They're a little bit cheaper. So it's $25 to $45 for French weaving, and then $50 to $120 for over weaving, which is where they take the patch. I know. was like, yeah, same. And then they have their other pricing sheets. I only looked at that one.

Kat (35:53)
That's really impressive. Okay. I would have thought I've been in lot more.

Tiffany (36:03)
Yeah, so I think if you compare the price of new versus the feeling of satisfaction you get from repairing it and being, yeah, I mean, it's honestly unbeatable, that feeling of like, I did it, like I did a thing and I didn't have to go out and buy something new. So, because I probably spent more, maybe not more money, but a decent chunk of money repairing the soles on my boots and I could have just gotten a new pair of boots for a little bit more. I'm glad I didn't.

Kat (36:08)
Yes. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, there's a, I just wanted to something about like, if you, I mean, I have these pieces of clothing that I've had for a long time. You know, I have my dad's REI wool sweater from 1975 or something. And it's got a huge hole in the armpit, but that has, that holds a very specific place in my wardrobe, you know? Yeah. So that I might do that. Cause it's like, it's, it's the only

Tiffany (36:33)
I'm like really glad I didn't.

⁓

this would be the perfect place to send that.

Kat (37:00)
Like when it gets below freezing in Austin and the power goes out because it inevitably does, I, that's like the piece of clothing I wear. Like that's, I have that and I know I have that. And if I didn't have that, I having to think about how I would replace that was, you know, it's like when you have developed your style and your, you know, certain things that you, you know, fit in a certain place at your wardrobe, like preparing them is so much better than trying to replace them, you know?

Tiffany (37:28)
Yes.

Yeah. And that's sort of, that's irreplaceable really. So that's really cool. The only issue really I have with all of these repair shops is cost wise is that you don't really know the final price until you see, until they see the garment.

Kat (37:44)
Right, how long? Yeah,

yeah, so they're just guessing.

Tiffany (37:48)
yeah, so that like patch at Eva Joan was like 45 plus. So it's like starts at 45. ⁓ And I, well, no, I was just gonna say, I think you do have to pay to ship to the store. So that's another cost. I don't know about return shipping, but.

Kat (37:51)
Yeah. Yeah. I've got, yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, I would think so.

Yeah, and

it looks like the Eva Joan that's down the street from me doesn't have ⁓ repair. They're just vintage.

Tiffany (38:11)
I wonder if it's the same.

Kat (38:14)
It's the same. It's their co-branded on Instagram. They're the same, I, well, maybe, maybe it was just, they haven't updated their website. I'll, I'll call them and ask. Cause they say they do, they had, they do leather repair and I've got this leather jacket that my friends had custom made for me in Argentina. Like when I was in college and it doesn't fit perfectly. Cause they just went around the store. They're like, you look like your cat size. Try this on, you know, so the, arms are like, you know, halfway up my arm and cause I have monkey arms, but, um,

Tiffany (38:23)
Maybe. No, that's really interesting.

okay.

Kat (38:45)
My rabbit chewed through the back of it on the leather 15 years ago and I've never gotten it repaired, but I've never thrown it away, obviously. And so I wonder if they could repair it and maybe update it a little, you know, like I was thinking like a patch on the back would be cool, but I can't, I can't sew leather, obviously. So that might be something to do. Yeah. But I haven't been able to find a leather repair place that I trusted or knew of, you know?

Tiffany (38:47)
⁓

Okay.

Yeah.

that's cool. Yeah.

Yes, yes. ⁓ cool. Yeah, that's awesome.

Right.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, if you're willing to do a patch, then that could be great.

Kat (39:18)
Yeah, and maybe put something on the sleeves to make them not.

Tiffany (39:22)
Yes, yeah, yeah. I'm sure they could find something. so the last barrier for repairing things that they said was incongruence with identity. So basically, you're not the type of person who repairs things. So this one, right, yeah, I mean, that's not what we're programmed to be.

Kat (39:23)
Not three quarters length, yeah.

Okay.

Which most of us aren't. Yeah.

Right. It's bad consumerism to repair things.

Tiffany (39:49)
in this?

Yes. This one is really interesting, because their conclusion is that we need structural and policy changes to support behavioral change, which ultimately will change the system. in the UK, which of course, the UK is ages ahead of us. Yeah, they have right to repair laws that have been introduced and

Kat (40:00)
interesting.

Advanced, yeah.

Tiffany (40:17)
that requires producers of household appliances to make spare parts and make those spare parts available for people to buy. And they say in this sustainability, I know they say in this sustainability sort of report that I read that this could be extended to clothing items. Yeah. They also in the UK, of course, have, I'm not jealous, but I am, extended producer responsibility.

Kat (40:36)
Why not?

Tiffany (40:47)
which is a regulatory policy where producers take responsibility for waste prevention, low impact product design, and supporting citizen repair and recycling. However, currently that does not include textiles and they say this could be reformed to include clothing.

Kat (41:05)
It could, but that's a harder thing to enforce, feel like, especially with fast fashion. But I feel like, if you did that, it might curb fast fashion to an extent, right? If they have to, if every shirt they make has to be repairable or like, you know, they would stop making so many, you know, or selling them for so cheap. And I don't know. Yeah, that's an interesting.

Tiffany (41:15)
Yeah.

Yeah, it is really interesting. it seems like probably very true that we would need policy support and not just because like think about smoking. It wasn't just because all of a sudden people decided smoking was bad that a lot of people stopped smoking or smoking in public. Yeah, yeah.

Kat (41:40)
Yeah.

Yeah, it was, it was illegal to do it in public. Yeah.

And the ad, the national ad council, council paid for ads to, yeah, to make it. Oh, and even I was thinking about littering in the U S commercials about littering, even just commercials sponsored by the government to get, yeah.

Tiffany (42:00)
Right.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah, and fines.

Yeah. Yeah, totally. So it does make sense. I mean, it's sort of like, I mean, they have basically forced appliance companies to be repairable.

Kat (42:11)
So, yeah, yeah.

That's freaking great.

Tiffany (42:23)
So like, why can't you do the same thing with clothing? You know?

Kat (42:25)
Yeah.

mean, it would have to be the manufacturers within the country, I think is the issue, right? Because that's, well, maybe. I wonder. Yeah. Because that's just a neat, because appliances are probably still built in or, yeah, China. I have a tangential story, another one. Would you like one? OK. So my dad has lived in

Tiffany (42:33)
I don't know. Yeah.

Made in Japan or Taiwan, yeah.

Yeah.

Yes.

Kat (42:55)
the house that I grew up in, so 45 years. Same washer dryer. Yeah, still work. Maytag. And started getting, the dryer wouldn't dry his clothes, you know, like fully. And he was like, no, something's wrong. So he called the dryer repair guy that he talked to since the eighties. And the guy went into his filing cabinet. Yep. Pulled out my dad's file.

Tiffany (43:11)
Yeah.

Steve.

Kat (43:22)
from his filing cabinet, looked it up and said, okay, you have this kind of dryer. So there's another filter outside that can catch lint. Is that clean? And my dad went and looked and they had, he'd had a mouse problem and they had put an exterior filter on the dryer exit thing. it there, the filter there was completely covered in lint and dad was like, ⁓ and so he removed it. then, and he was talking to the guy and he's like, yeah, in all of my years servicing dryers, I've only seen one mouse get in through a dryer vent.

Tiffany (43:23)
Wow.

huh.

Kat (43:52)
and that mouse was pretty mangled. So I think you're okay. The mice aren't going to get through there and they talked for a little bit and then my dad found out. You know, he said, well, thanks. How much do I owe you? He's like, ⁓ I'm retired. I've been retired for 10 years. I just, you know, still had your file.

Tiffany (43:55)
Ugh.

my god

Kat (44:14)
and just was happy to answer his question, you know, and like.

Tiffany (44:17)
Happy to be useful. That is so cool.

Kat (44:19)
I

was like, dad, don't leave that washer and dryer, you know, take it with, but like that's, you don't get that anymore. I can't, you don't get that kind of lifetime relationship warranty with a repair person. You know, I, it's rare. I've had an HVAC installed here and they didn't do it right and wouldn't take ownership of it. And I refuse to like call them to fix things, but

Tiffany (44:34)
No.

Yeah.

Ugh.

Kat (44:48)
I don't know it that it's it. That's such a thing to like have a machine that's going to last a hundred years, you know, and is fixable by a person who knows how to do it. You know, what a wild throwback from. So anyway, it was impressive. Yeah. Yeah.

Tiffany (44:54)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Yes.

Wow, that is crazy. It's crazy that that is so old school and sad.

I mean, there are still like dishwasher, like we had a dishwasher repair guy come out, but.

Kat (45:14)
Yeah,

I have, I have a, what my, water, the guy who installed my water heater, I would trust him to repair it. No problem. And the guy who does my roof repairs, you know, not the HVAC guys, you know, I have a pretty good mechanic too, but

Tiffany (45:21)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, sounds like they suck. OK,

yeah, it's very hard to find. No, I loved it. That was awesome. And it was very related. So funny enough, does the Earth-friendly message need to come back to Earth? No, because there isn't one.

Kat (45:33)
Anyway, tangent, tangent, tangent, but.

Mm-mm-mm.

There is one. Yeah, they're not selling it as a sustainability thing. I mean, maybe, but yeah. But that's isn't that kind of refreshing? Because then, know, we have large scale repair stuff that would just would. I don't know if it could cause as much damage, which, you know, would be kind of like with the shipping and they would like ignore that and they'd be like, but you're saying, you know.

Tiffany (45:44)
Yeah. And to be honest, they could. Like they totally could. It is.

Uh-huh.

Kat (46:09)
200 church from going to the landfill every year or something.

Tiffany (46:12)
Yeah.

Yeah, you should look at their shipping form. It's like a very, very blurry PDF. I know it's so good. Yeah, so I mean, they don't make there's no Green Hooey to be found, which is awesome. ⁓ And the reviews of the shop itself are fantastic. So 4.6 stars on Yelp out of 48 reviews, which is good. That's like really good.

Kat (46:18)
I love it.

Right.

I saw, think on Google, they had 166 reviews and they were all...

Tiffany (46:41)
I didn't even look at Google, actually.

Kat (46:43)
4.8 stars out of 166 reviews. They have like two one-star reviews. I wonder what those are.

Tiffany (46:45)
⁓ damn, that's really good.

Yeah, no,

it's funny on Yelp, one person recently complained about how long it took to get their garment back, but then also said that the work was flawless.

Kat (46:58)
Yeah, this is like, ⁓ my competitive Irish dance dress was butchered and tanked the resale value. And then somebody else is like, this placement in my wedding time so stressful. Uh-oh. I asked the lady to do certain things and the few important things I needed her to do never got done. Okay. But that was nine years or four years ago. Yeah, these seem pretty few and far between.

Tiffany (47:16)
Well, there's always going to be.

Yeah, okay, yeah.

Yes, there's always gonna be something.

yeah. And like I said, the pictures, the before and after pictures are impressive. ⁓ some of them are a little bit more obvious, but like where the original hole was, but like some of them are literally impossible to find. It's crazy. So. On to our granola rating. So I'm going go with like repair in general, but also that shop itself.

Kat (47:45)
Yes.

Tiffany (47:51)
Clothing, garment repair.

How crunchy is it? So we do this granola rating every episode where we rate things one to five for how much green hooey it uses and how crunchy their claims are. Because we want crunchiness, right? We're all crunchy folk around here. So one is soggy. You don't want that. Two is mushy. Three is chewy. Four is crunchy. And five is break your tooth off if you want to actually like not have teeth. Which is the goal.

Kat (48:08)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Which would be

just, just be great. Yeah. Our green living goal is not to have teeth.

Tiffany (48:28)
Yeah, who needs But then you couldn't eat your granola. Yeah, shucks. The oatmeal. Yeah. But I actually rated this Break Your Tooth off.

Kat (48:31)
Well, no, you'd have to eat the soggy stuff probably. Yeah. Back to oatmeal. Yeah.

Yay, it's our first one of the season.

Tiffany (48:43)
I know, maybe our first one in a long time actually. Yeah, because I just think they're awesome. I love that they're small, that they have clearly dedicated. They have this whole video about how she, it's just so clearly an art and there's dedication to it and they're really good at it and it's helping people not throw away things into the landfill.

Kat (48:46)
It's been a long time, yeah.

Tiffany (49:13)
I really can't find any faults with them or just repair in general. So I just think it's a winner all around. And Eva Joan, same way. So it just depends on what style you want. And I'm sure there are thousands of others, right? Because it's becoming.

Kat (49:31)
I'm sure you can just look up your local

alteration and repair shop and go, yeah. Like re-sewing your boots, like you were saying. Yeah.

Tiffany (49:37)
Yeah, and I was wondering, right,

because there are obviously local tailors can be super good, but I don't know how many can do this. Yeah, like the reweaving, some of them probably can, but I don't, yeah, I don't know. It's kind of interesting. I would be curious to go to like a regular tailor and ask them if they can like re-knit a sweater. They may be able to, so.

Kat (49:48)
that level of skill. Yeah.

Right.

Tiffany (50:07)
Yeah, I mean, I think there's so many options and it's really exciting, but this is a really good one if you need a place to start.

Kat (50:15)
Awesome. I love that. This is such a good episode to end the season on because it's been some ups and downs, I think, and having something hopeful like that is nice.

Tiffany (50:16)
Yeah.

I know.

I know that's why I was like, can't do Stitchy. That Stitchy product. Yes. I'm like, I know that I'm just going to throw it away. I don't know that. Okay. I don't want to say that it's shit when I haven't tried it, but

Kat (50:27)
No, no, you'd be like, trash. Yeah. Yeah.

Tiffany (50:39)
yeah, so we have one more, right? Next week, you're doing, we just said it, Fjallraven. Is it Fjallraven or Fjallraven?

Kat (50:43)
Yes.

Fjallraven, yeah. So,

I think it's Fjallraven, but probably in America it's Fjallraven.

Tiffany (50:55)
Fagil.

Kat (50:57)
That

doesn't sound good. I don't know why.

Tiffany (50:59)
Imagine all Raven, yeah.

I'm so, that is so rude of us, Norwegian? Is it Norway? Or is it Swedish? Okay. Yeah. Now I'm really excited about them because...

Kat (51:08)
Yeah, that's... I think it's Swedish. Yeah.

Tiffany (51:18)
I have heard a lot about them. I don't have anything by them, I ⁓ want, it's like an aspiration, but ⁓ yeah, think. ⁓

Kat (51:26)
Yeah. I can't find my bag. My

old boss gave me one of their bags once and I used it all the time on trips and stuff, but I don't know what happened to it. So anyway, I'll... Yeah. Yeah.

Tiffany (51:35)
Yeah, those are great. Okay. Dig it out. Maybe, hopefully.

Cool. Well, until then, what should we ask folks to do?

Kat (51:47)
⁓ well, I think we're going to be putting a Patreon up for the first time in a couple of months. So we're going to talk about layoffs. So if you haven't subscribed to Patreon, give it a whirl and, ⁓ catch up on our past episodes and, ⁓ yeah.

Tiffany (51:50)
yes.

Yeah, please do. And that's how you can support us doing

our independent thing. So very cool. All right. Well, thank you for listening.

Kat (52:05)
Awesome. All right.

Thank you, Tiffany. I'll see you next week.

Tiffany (52:09)
You're welcome.

Okay. Bye.