Clothing repair is trending – but is it a real industry shift?

Attention to clothing repair and care is trending upwards. People appear increasingly interested in what their clothes are made of, how long they will last, and how to look after them. Brands are also waking up to repair. During the first half of 2026, brands and retailers including Salomon, Kiabi and Next launched repair programmes, and United Repair Centre, one of Europe’s biggest repair providers, opened a new repair hub in Paris.

According to the Fédération de la Mode Circulaire and KPMG, Europe’s clothing and footwear repair market was worth an estimated 2.8 billion euros in 2025 and is projected to grow 5.5 percent a year through 2030, reaching 3.7 billion euros. The market is still relatively small, and the industry is still at an early stage. Repair is labour-intensive, business models for brands haven’t yet been fully established, and falling garment quality means many items aren’t worth repairing. Research published during H1 showed that repair can pay off when items are of high quality, which makes durable design as important as the repair service itself.

On the policy front, repair bonuses, circular VAT and ecodesign requirements could all help the sector scale. While governments are gradually paying more attention to incentivising repair, the decisive factor for the industry may be growing consumer interest. As more people use repair services, learn to repair their own clothes and demand durable products, brands will need to respond.

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Consumer interest is shifting towards care and quality

Interest in clothing repair and care has been growing since 2025 according to Google Trends data, and conversations about clothing materials are gaining ground on social media under hashtags like #fabrictok and #naturalfibertok. The rising interest in materials, and especially a preference for natural fibres over synthetics, is also connected to growing concern about microplastics in clothing and other consumer products. Circularity-minded consumers also expect their clothes to last. In Samsara Eco’s 2026 Circular-Conscious Consumer Report, a survey of over 5,000 predominantly Gen Z members of its community, 89 percent of respondents said they expect at least 30 wears from a product, and 54 percent said quality is the brand’s responsibility.

In addition to rising interest in quality and durability, repair is becoming something people want to be seen doing. Visible mending is turning repair into a style statement, with repairs increasingly shown off rather than hidden. According to Pinterest’s Hobbies Trend Report 2026, searches for “sashiko ideas”, the Japanese visible mending technique, rose 1,509 percent, and searches for “repair aesthetic” rose 157 percent. Some brands are leaning in too, with Arc’teryx’s repair patches becoming a desired look in their own right.

Brands are becoming increasingly interested in repair

Circular Fashion News mapped nine brand repair programme launches and expansions in H1 2026. In France, Kiabi, Moea and Octobre all launched programmes with repair platform Save Your Wardrobe, while Salomon partnered with United Repair Centre and has since expanded its programme to the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain. In the UK, Next launched repairs with Sojo, Primark with The Seam, and Lanx with Tern. Fabienne Chapot partnered with Mended in the Netherlands, and Australian retailer The Iconic with Hello Tailr.

The new launches join a group of brands that have run repair for years, in some cases for decades:

• Barbour first introduced its re-waxing and repair service in 1921 and now re-waxes or repairs around 97,000 items a year
• Patagonia, which has repaired its products since 1976, repaired 174,799 items worldwide in FY25
• Nudie Jeans, which has offered free repairs since 2014, carried out 68,342 repairs and alterations in 2024
• In luxury, Louis Vuitton runs 12 repair workshops worldwide, handling nearly 600,000 items a year

Money is both the biggest motivator and the biggest barrier

During H1, RISE, Research Institutes of Sweden, published a study of more than 3,000 consumers in Denmark, Poland and Sweden on clothing repair services. In Denmark and Sweden, financial benefits were the strongest motivation to repair, ahead of environmental reasons. In a choice experiment on jeans repair, respondents were on average willing to pay roughly 40 to 85 percent of the price of a new pair, depending on the country, though the researchers note these figures should be seen as an upper limit. In Denmark and Sweden, the main barrier to using repair services was not being able to assess the cost and time involved upfront, while in Poland it was how easy it is to simply buy new.

At the same time, falling prices driven by fast and ultra-fast fashion make many garments too cheap to be worth repairing. When a new item costs less than mending an old one, price becomes the deciding factor. This is why much of the policy discussion around repair focuses on making it cheaper for the end-consumer.

On the policy front, the biggest impact might come from circular VAT and repair bonus initiatives

Policy support for repair works mainly through three levers: ecodesign requirements for durable and repairable products, Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), and financial incentives such as repair bonuses and reduced VAT. Of these, the financial incentives most directly address the money problem consumers describe.

France’s repair bonus remains the main reference point. Since 2023, it has given consumers an instant discount of 7 to 25 euros per clothing or footwear repair at certified repairers, funded by brands through EPR fees. In February 2026, the Irish government announced it will pilot a similar repair voucher scheme from 2027.

Circular VAT could potentially have an even broader effect. EU law has allowed reduced VAT on clothing and footwear repair since 2022, but few countries apply it. According to the Fédération de la Mode Circulaire and KPMG study, an EU-wide Circular VAT introduced in 2029 would raise annual growth to about 7.4 percent and the 2030 market to about 3.9 billion euros.

In May, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and 69 organisations, including H&M Group, Decathlon, Zalando, Vinted and Arc’teryx, called on governments to lower VAT and labour taxes on repair and resale. According to the foundation’s “The New Bottom Line” report, these measures could lift gross profit margins for repair to around 41 percent.

Brands need to figure out how to benefit from repair

Many brands still run repair as a customer-service cost rather than a revenue stream. A briefing by the University of Exeter, Manchester Metropolitan University and Finisterre mapped six ways brands can organise repair. These range from brand-led in-house repair hubs to approved partners, independent third parties and customer-enabled repair, where the brand provides tools, parts and instructions.

Much of the discussion about how brands benefit from repair focuses on strategic value, such as customer loyalty and regulatory readiness, but there are also signs that repair can generate new revenue through resale. In Fashion for Good and Circle Economy’s “Sorting for Circularity: Project Rewear” report, United Repair Centre analysed data on 1,131 branded items processed through its repair and renewal service. Repair, inspection and washing cost an average of 22.73 euros per item, and the items resold for an average of 73.93 euros. That is 3.3 times the repair cost, and 97.7 percent of items resold for more than it cost to repair them.

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In conclusion, the findings of H1 2026 suggest repair is moving beyond a niche, but it is not yet an industry shift in the way, for example, resale has become one. Consumer interest is real, brand launches are multiplying, and the economics can work for quality products. But the market is still small, most programmes remain modest compared to sales volumes, and the price gap between repairing and buying new keeps repair out of reach for much of the market.

References:
-State & Prospects of Circular Fashion in Europe, 2026, Fédération de la Mode Circulaire / KPMG
-Circular-Conscious Consumer Report, 2026, Samsara Eco
-Hobbies Trend Report 2026, 2026, Pinterest
-Consumer Preferences for Digital Platform-Based Clothing Repair Service Features: Evidence from a Multinational Choice Experiment, 2026, RISE Research Institutes of Sweden (Daniel, Diener & Hunka, Cleaner and Responsible Consumption)
-The New Bottom Line, 2026, Ellen MacArthur Foundation
-Mapping the Repair Landscape in Fashion: Briefing for Business Leaders, 2026, University of Exeter / Manchester Metropolitan University / Finisterre
-Sorting for Circularity: Project Rewear, 2026, Fashion for Good / Circle Economy