How We Make Repair the New Standard

Throwing away your favorite pants or sweater always hurts. Fortunately, you can have your clothes repaired through MENDED.

The origins of many businesses can be traced back to a simple question with an unsatisfactory answer. This is also the case with MENDED, Agnes Weber's clothing repair platform. Her question: “Can you repair my favorite pants?” The answer: “No.” So she decided to come up with a solution herself. Her first repair attempt started with a pair of pants full of tears.

After a short career as a kindergarten teacher, the Austrian-born Weber traveled to the United States as an au pair. There she started vlogging, and this hobby grew to thousands of followers. They would later come in handy, because Weber had not yet finished traveling and started studying in Utrecht. And then there was the broken jeans. 

"The clothing brand—she prefers not to name it—told her to take it elsewhere. ‘We don't do repairs.’ After asking around, Weber realized there was not only a hole in her pants, but also a gap in the market. “Clothing brands see repairs as a ‘cost item,’” she says. “But for customers, it's a tactical consideration in whether or not they come back to you. Our data shows that customers are 2.3 times more likely to return if a brand offers repairs.”

These are the figures from MENDED, which she founded in 2022 together with Daan Maasson. The company acts as a link between customers, clothing manufacturers, and repairers. Social media guru Weber handles relationships and communication, while Maasson is head of finance and operations. “When brands do offer repairs, it often feels like filing a tax return,” says Weber. "Tailor's jargon that the average customer doesn't understand, with questions like: ‘Would you like a chain stitch?’ The goal is to reach people who do care about having their clothes repaired, and that's great. Our site is as simple and accessible as possible: we show customers what something looks like. Having clothes repaired should be as easy as buying clothes."

Weber doesn't engage in woolly sustainability talk. “In principle, everything we do is sustainable, but that doesn't seem to matter much to the vast majority of customers. They just want a nice return process and don't want to feel judged.” Let's look at the facts. Since its founding three years ago, MENDED has repaired more than 10,000 items. Anyone walking around with holes in their Kuyichi sweater, ARMEDANGLES shirt, or MUD Jeans pants can count on its services. MENDED charges a commission per repaired garment. The rate is agreed upon with the brands and customers.

What exactly happens depends on the revenue model of the garment, and MENDED does not disclose how much profit or loss this generates. They expect to have repaired 10,000 garments this year. Weber and Maasson hope to pass the 20,000 mark within half that time. A capital injection is not necessarily at the top of the founders' agenda, but there are also many trousers with holes abroad, so they have their sights set on expansion.

In Germany, for example, government subsidies for circular fashion and the large German market are driving growth. Other countries, such as France, are also seeing growth, partly due to government subsidies for circular clothing strategies. When it comes to clothing repairs, Sweden is high on the list with Filippa K. Timeless and high quality: “That boom may just be hitting the right spot.”They are not looking for a replacement for the time being. In any case, the trouser market is not going to be tightened up for the time being.

WHAT DOES THE EXPERT THINK? Thijs Verheul, co-founder of United Wardrobe: 'This is a difficult market. A broken H&M sweater goes in the trash, but people are increasingly willing to repair a quality brand. MENDED is a good platform, with good communication and a social story. But success comes when you have a smart marketer and a partner with smart development. It's looking good." 

The article was originally published at QUOTE https://www.quotenet.nl/ by Zed Hasel, photo by Mark Horn.