Invisible Menders: Paramedics for suits
Some time ago I paid a fortune for some brightly coloured Holland and Sherry tartan cloth and made myself a hacking jacket. I loved it to bits and all was fine until I was attacked by a barbed wire fence when out on one of my client’s shoots. One of those awful triangular tears was the result, in full view half-way up the sleeve.
The cloth was discontinued and the only way to put this right was to try to cover it with a patch or call in the ‘emergency services’.
Invisible mending is a highly-skilled, time-consuming service that patches, re-weaves and disguises what would seem to be irreparable damage to cloth. This can include cigarette burns, tears, moth holes, cuts, and perhaps the most catastrophic of all accidents, the slip of a scissor-hand on a finished garment. Every job has to be treated individually, and even seemingly impossible tasks can have miraculous results. The precise method, perfected over generations, involves taking threads from concealed parts of a garment, a ‘hem’ or ‘cuff’ say, and reweaving them over tears. One of the benefits of a bespoke garment is that they have generous inlays from where the replacement threads can be retrieved. Incidentally, there is a similar procedure for leather which involves a clever gluing technique to return the skin to its former glory.
There are two places I know of where one can get this service. One is based in the Midlands but is a closely guarded secret of the trade. The other caters more for non-trade customers and is based in Thayer Street, Marylebone, London. The British Invisible Mending Service is a family concern and has been established in Marylebone for over 70 years and although I have not had occasion to use their services it is well worth taking a tour of their website which has all manner of useful information about the process of taking your garment into ‘intensive care’.
A repair can take a number of days and comes at a premium because of the special skills required, but to this day I marvel that I can’t find the tear in my coat.
Photo: Thanks to Tendring District Council
