Aria Hannah sat in a second-floor studio at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, surrounded by garments that had seen better days. There were jeans with crotch holes and a T-shirt that was disintegrating at the collar. A pair of polka-dot socks were practically begging to be darned.<\/p>\n
\u201cA moth hole is such a beautiful thing to have,\u201d said Hannah, 20, a junior studying fashion design. \u201cIt\u2019s just an opportunity for something new.\u201d<\/p>\n
She and the dozen or so other students in the room make up Pratt\u2019s Mending Circle, a group of young people that convenes twice a month to sip bergamot tea and reinforce pocket linings. For a little over a year, its members have brought well-worn clothes from their closets \u2014 and sometimes their classmates\u2019, too \u2014 and stitched them back into circulation.<\/p>\n
Hannah used a needle and thread to close up a hole in the navy blue wool coat she had been wearing all winter. She was next to Gianna Breinig, 21, the club\u2019s president, who pinned a patch of cobalt fabric to a threadbare section of a friend\u2019s pants. (In return, he had promised her a free tattoo.)<\/p>\n
\u201cI love being able to help people repair things that otherwise maybe they\u2019d just throw out,\u201d said Breinig, a junior from Gilbert, Ariz. \u201cLike, let me show you how to fix that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sewing circles have existed for generations, including groups organized through local churches in the 19th century<\/a>, Abolitionist sewing circles<\/a> and those that sprang up in response to textile-rationing efforts in World War II. But mending skills have experienced a modest resurgence<\/a> in recent years, and sewing<\/a> and other hands-on hobbies<\/a> are taking off among some members of Gen Z.<\/p>\n The mending circle at Pratt draws mostly fashion design students who treat each distressed T-shirt as a creative prompt: How might a frayed hem be transformed with eye-catching embroidery?<\/p>\n The club grew out of a series of meet-ups organized by Brooke Garner, 36, an assistant professor of fashion design at Pratt. She hoped to offer an environment in which students could decompress while working on clothing that had nothing to do with their schoolwork.<\/p>\n \u201cI see it so clearly as an act of resistance against all these negative forces that we\u2019re up against, whether it\u2019s consumerist fast fashion or just this pressure to always be producing and making something new,\u201d Garner said.<\/p>\n She gathered skeins of yarn, spools of thread, embroidery hoops and old T-shirts to use as fabric scraps. (Many supplies came from a neighborhood \u201cBuy Nothing\u201d group<\/a> on Facebook.) Only two or three students showed up at first, but eventually, word of the mending circle spread. \u201cEverybody has a pile of clothes that need to be repaired, right?\u201d Garner said.<\/p>\n During a mending session in late April, Garner put on a playlist of gentle piano music. Students filed in, chatting about the projects they needed to get done before the end of the semester.<\/p>\n Jacob Jenkins, 20, said he saw clothing repair as a practical necessity for his generation. \u201cI think we\u2019re at a time where we can\u2019t buy new clothes \u2014 we don\u2019t have the money,\u201d he said. He had big plans to embroider the canvas of a pair of worn-out Converse.<\/p>\n Theo Goldman, 21, cut a laundry bag into patches that he was stitching to a pair of jeans. He is a fan of sashiko<\/a>, a Japanese form of needlework that is both decorative and fortifying. With the technique, a piece of clothing \u201ccan be even stronger than it used to be,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n When students wanted a break, they added embellishment to a fabric quilt that belongs to the whole group. Auguste DuBois, 22, wove a blue-and-green cord with a two-pronged tool called a lucet. Camila Terreros, 21, repaired a hole in the pocket of her bomber jacket.<\/p>\n Elena Scherer, 20, knitted the sleeve of a cardigan from a lightweight Icelandic wool. What did she think was drawing people her age to mending?<\/p>\n