Mend!, Kate Sekules
Mend!, Kate Sekules
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Mend!
A Refashioning Manual and Manifesto

Author: Kate Sekules

Narrator: Kate Sekules

Unabridged: 5 hr 17 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 09/08/2020

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included


Synopsis

A hands-on manual and a history and celebration of clothes tending--and it's remarkable resurgence as art form, political statement, and path to healing the planet.

For thousands of years, mending was a deep craft that has for too long been a secret history. But now it's back, bigger and better than ever. In this audiobook Kate Sekules introduces the art of visible mending as part of an important movement to give fashion back its soul. Part manifesto, part how-to, MEND! calls for bold new ways of keeping clothes and refreshing your style. Crammed with tips, fun facts, and tutorials, MEND! tells you exactly how to rescue and renew your wardrobe with flair and aplomb--and save money along the way.

Whether you've never owned a needle or are an aspiring professional, MEND! gives you clear instruction and witty advice, with over thirty techniques, from classic darning and patching to cheeky new methods invented by Sekules, to help you turn every garment into a unique fashion statement. Including interviews with menders, shameful fashion industry facts, a ten-step closet mend, cheat sheets, stitch guides, moth elimination, museum conservator and vintage dealer tricks, and more, this is an audiobook to inspire, delight, and galvanize. Sharp, funny, and incredibly timely, MEND! leads the slow fashion revolution into its next phase, where getting dressed is a joyful, creative experience for all.

*This audiobook includes a PDF of images from the book.

About The Author

Kate Sekules is a writer, clothes historian, mender and mending educator. A leading light in the visible mending movement, she has shown her work and taught the techniques and history of repair in universities, museums, and symposia, including New York University, Parsons, the Fashion Institute of Technology, the Textile Arts Center, RISD Museum, Columbia University Chicago, the Costume Society of America, the Textile Society of America, and the UK Association of Dress Historians. Her writing has appeared in publications such as Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, The New Yorker, The Guardian, The New York Times, and academic journals. She is a PhD candidate in material culture at the Bard Graduate Center, New York; holds a masters degree in Costume Studies from NYU, and runs the Menders Directory on her website visiblemending.com. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Laura on November 14, 2020

There are a few small ways in which Kate Sekules and I see things differently (mostly I don't agree with filling your closet to chock full because it's inevitable like she says it is, and a couple of other li'l things), I enjoyed this book immensely. It's a combination of interesting history of fabr......more

Goodreads review by Lynda on February 08, 2021

Such an interesting history of cloth-its value and the care taken for it to retain its use and value. I am now encouraged to mend the hole in the left knee of my fave jeans and resurrect them from the very bottom of my dresser! Not sure a woman of 60+ years can pull off the independent vibe of mended......more


Quotes

Praise for MEND!

"Sekules brings a refreshingly fierce voice to an assemblage of topics…A prim sewing guide this is not, and I am here for it. If you want sewing basics, Sekules does offer them, but along the way she will school you on where fashion has been and where it’s going (to the grave?)." —BookPage (starred)

"As someone who does not know how to sew at all, I tend to shy away from any mending projects (hence the seamstress to whom I deliver damaged items for repair). But Sekules' book does a remarkable job at making me think I actually could do this myself – and even want to try. A needle is less daunting than a sewing machine, and the diagrams in the book are so clear and simple that I am inspired to tackle my next holey t-shirt." —Treehugger.com

"Both practical and political, with a directory of menders whose work Sekules reveres, Mend! is a slow-fashion manifesto, a DIY manual and an argument for adding a little flair to any old garment--either by necessity or just because." —Shelf Awareness