Challenging the stigmas of care and repair with Save Your Wardrobe

As many consumers look to have a more mindful approach to fashion, different solutions have been cropping up. This includes circular solutions such as shopping secondhand, using deadstock material to create ‘new’ clothes and recycling clothing in-store or through third-party companies. This has enabled many consumers to extend the life cycle of their clothing or shop in a more sustainable way.

However, there is one part of the lifecycle of a piece of clothing that often leads to it being thrown away, and that is when your item rips, tears, or has a stain that you yourself can’t remove. Just the idea of mending a hole can seem unappealing… People would notice you mending your clothes and assume something from that, right? Well, what if we changed our perception towards repairing, altering or cleaning clothes? And what are easy ways for me to access these services?

Save Your Wardrobe is one of the companies turning stigmas on their head to make them positive and their one-stop solution to altering, mending, eco-cleaning and donating clothing makes circularity that much easier for consumers.

Challenging the stigmas of care and repair

First, let’s stop a second and think about what your most recent reaction to a stain, a tear or a seam unraveling has been. Like most of us, if keeping your clothes for a long time is important to you, you must have muttered a swear word under your breath and thought ‘I can’t believe it, this is ruined!’

But what if we thought about it in a different way? Sure, it’s never nice to tear your clothes, but mending it could actually bring more character to the item and make it look a bit edgier. Think of a hole in a t-shirt, now instead of just repairing the hole, think of embroidering all around the hole and on the t-shirt. It can be anything your heart desires! Like this, your clothing item will be more *you*, and you will probably like and wear it even more. Seems like a win-win to us.

Same thing with a stain! Either get it eco-cleaned, easy and your garment looks good as new, or get it upcycled, for instance you could tye-dye part of a shirt for a cool new look that will also hide the stain that was there prior.

What is Save Your Wardrobe and how does it work?

So, how does Save Your Wardrobe fit into this picture and where can it help me be more circular? To put it simply, SYW is a digital wardrobe that enables you to add the clothes you already have into your phone to style, re-use and repair them.

To start off, users put photos of their clothes into their digital wardrobe.

Next, they can create outfits with their clothes, making sure they make the most out of all their wardrobe, and not only the few pieces in the front.

But that isn’t it! Once all your clothes have been added to your wardrobe, go to the services tab of the app, where you will be proposed mending, eco-cleaning, altering, donating and responsible shopping options available locally. Click on the service that you would like to book and you will be able to use your images to book the service that you want, with collection of the item straight from your home.

Becoming more sustainable and making an impact

How easy is that! At this point you might be asking yourself how sustainable this really is. Surely, there are emissions due to transport and how do I know if the service partners themselves are eco-friendly?

Between March 2020 and 2021, thanks to our community of wardrobe savers, we saved 32000 kilograms of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere. That’s the equivalent of emissions from a passenger vehicle driven for 80000 miles (more than 3.2 times around the world).

And the services are not the only thing making you more sustainable. Save Your Wardrobe did a study with the University of Glasgow which showed that just having all of the clothes you already own in your digital wardrobe will enable you to have a better view on the clothes you have and prevent impulsive shopping of new items. Additionally, if you already have sewing skills, there are even DIY mending and upcycling tutorials on the app.

With this all in one solution, Save Your Wardrobe enables users to start on their sustainable and circular journey, or continue along it. SYW’s mission is to make circularity accessible to as many people as possible, and that is why they have launched a repair and care initiative available in Berlin and Dusseldorf with Zalando, while continuing to look to expand into new countries. For the rest of the world, download the app now !