Serah-Marie McMahon holds up a thin, dark teal cardigan that has clearly seen better days. Stained and stretched, the pilled fabric is so worn that it’s almost transparent. The lumpy mass is equal parts holes to fabric. It looks landfill-ready to an amateur like me, but McMahon reaches across the cluttered table, determinedly grabs a spool of aqua thread, and gets to work. “I like to mend so you can see it because I think it looks cool,” she says, “When I was a teenager in the ‘90s it was a big trend to do it yourself, and that stuck with me. I always try to use a contrasting thread.”

At WORN Fashion Journal’s monthly mending night, anyone can bring their wounded garments and make them like new.  As the founder of WORN, McMahon is a regular attendee at the monthly event, formally named “Thursday Night Your Stockings Needed Mending” (taking a cue from the Beatles’ Lady Madonna).  In the winter months, mending takes place inside amongst the curated wares at Freedom Clothing Collective, an independent boutique on Bloor Street West. The sizeable pack takes to a tiny wooden table in the front of the shop, armed with fabric, yarn, thread, corn nuts and the odd cupcake.

Thursday Night Your Stockings Needed Mending is just one part of the post-recession mend trend sweeping Toronto, a reflection of the new-found value placed on money and belongings. Fast fashion may be as popular as ever, with Canadians spending 4 per cent of their income on clothing alone (according to Stats Canada). But under the surface, an anti-consumerism rebellion is brewing, prepared to fight for torn, used clothes with needles and thread.

Grant Heaps, the assistant wardrobe coordinator at The National Ballet of Canada and frequent visitor to WORN’s mending night, has mastered the art of non-wasting. “I get attached to my clothes and hate having to give them up. There is an emotional attachment. When I can no longer wear something it almost always goes into my fabric collection, which I use to make my quilts.” Heaps added he only shops twice a year and buys an average of four items maximum, less than the amount I buy every month.

Gwen Stegelmann, McMahon’s close friend and WORN managing editor, has been mending her whole life. “My mother could fix anything. She grew up in a tiny town outside Frankfurt in Germany during and after WWII, so the notion of ‘Make-do and Mend’ came naturally. She also lived in a time where new clothes were harder to come by–more expensive or handmade. You didn’t expect to have new things all the time and the things you had were made to last and be repaired. We always had a “to-do” basket of skirts with fallen hems or shirts missing buttons. I have wonderful memories of mending socks over a bright yellow plastic darning egg.”

As the sun descends, the group’s size grows and the mending quickens. One attendee works with another to attach patterned elbow pads to a bland sweater; another, mending night rookie Brianne Burnell, matches fabric to make a patch for a pair of black motorcycle pants. Although Burnell is a fashion student and qualified sewer, this is the first time in months that she’s mended and the pants aren’t even her own. As a past WORN intern, I’ve convinced her to give the event a try, but she’s not easily converted. “Just because I can sew doesn’t mean I have time to do it,” she says, “I like shopping, I’m in fashion and consumerism is a big part of the industry. I’m not going to give up fast fashion, simply because for me, it’s fast and easy to replace. I thought I’d try it out tonight, but I don’t think mending fits into my actual life.”

But for disciplined menders like Hillary Predko, who sits to the left of McMahon and totes a suitcase stuffed full of fabric scraps and yarn, replacing clothing isn’t the only way. Hillary is the most experienced maker in the group, offering advice to those who, like me, can hardly sew a button.  Predko usually comes armed not only with mending supplies for herself, but mason jars of rainbow buttons, unusual fabric scraps and even craft supplies for those with empty hands. But why bother mending when it’s so quick and easy to replace? “Living in a developed country, we all accumulate a whole lot of stuff,” Predko says, “We are told to buy more stuff, to get this season’s things. This is an incredibly wasteful state of mind, and we can all benefit from taking care of the things we already own.”

At this point I’m seriously reconsidering my consumer habits, which satisfies McMahon. “We want to force people to think about clothes and their consumption of clothing more, even if people don’t attend and just hear about it, they have to think about it a little bit,” she says. McMahon herself has yet to shop for clothing once this year, although she has commissioned Predko to make her a dress that will fit her taste and plus-size frame, something she can’t seem to find in stores without spending at least $200.

As McMahon stitches up what she hopes will be the last hole in her cardigan (for today anyway), the once-crowded table begins to thin. The sun has nearly set. This month’s event has had the largest turnout yet. McMahon has noticed the numbers grow, not only here, but at Stitch and Bitch events across the city. McMahon accredits the mend trend to the recent recession, and the new-found value for doing things yourself that you’d otherwise pay professionals to do, “I’m pretty poor. I could mend a pair of pants and it’s virtually free, but new pants can run up to $200! Considering the state of the economy I’m probably not the only one thinking this way.”

~ Alyssa Garrison | photos by Adam Goldhammer