The MendWear Process

Local Albuquerque thrift shops receive donations from supporters. Stores then sort through donations, putting items that fit their customers out on the floor, and passing the rest to a business that handles textile waste. 

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MendWear intervenes in that process by purchasing gallons of apparel discarded by a partner thrift store, and sorting it with a rubric different from that of the store. 

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MendWear takes in clothes that would otherwise leave our city by returning to the textile waste stream. I then go through gallon after gallon of this material, sorting it into the following categories:

-- Natural-fiber (100% cotton, linen, wool or silk, or blends of those fibers) apparel in need of repair form my growing range of visibly mended, reworked and upcycled apparel products. I deconstruct many gallons of these garments per month. 10% of sales are passed on to the partner store, towards socially necessary but unprofitable projects.

-- Clothes in good condition that meet market demands are sold through the MendWear store on eBay, with 10% of gross profits returned to the partner store.

-- Clothes in good condition that are unsalable through eBay are donated to an organization providing garments to Latin American refugees and folks recently released from our justice system.

-- Clothes in good condition with a funkier vibe are exchanged through clothing swaps and other events.

-- Interesting garments that have no market either as a commodity or a donation fuel experimentation, which eventually leads to new products.

-- Knitwear in good condition that don't meet the above requirementsare donated to art programs like Circo Globo, or used as rags. Contact us if you'd like to receive such materials.

-- garments that don't fit into the above categories are returned to the waste stream via Clothes Helping Kids, Savers' local non-profit partner.

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What if: the MendWear process at scale

I’m demonstrating what a single artist can do with the waste of a single thrift store. What if every thrift store had an artisan in residence, enacting their own MendWear process? Given a vibrant online presence, fueled by the marketing efforts of that artist, how much of these products sell, and live again in the households of its clients? How many gallons of apparel would be saved from the shores of Accra? How many hours of human labor would be honored and utilized, rather than being melted into micro plastics in the oceans?