“Like Stitches to a Wound”: Fashioning Taste in and Through Garment Mending Practices

Abstract

This article immerses the reader into the world of garment mending in communal repair events in four cities— Helsinki, Auckland, Wellington, and Edinburgh—to explore mending as a locus of taste. It engages in the discussion on taste as a reflexive activity and a sensed effect that gradually reveals itself to the practitioners engaged in the practice of mending. Here the focus is on the role of the body and the interplay between the sensing body and materials, to show how everyday menders construct a taste for and toward their practice over time. As menders actively engage with and appropriate the given design of their garments, they defy mainstream wasteful fast-fashion practices and mobilize variations in dress practices while connecting with the matter that makes up their clothing . By engaging with the notion of taste in this way, the overall aim of this article is to clarify how everyday menders become able to form an alliance with their practice, ultimately converting mending into an object of passion.