Funding from the National Lottery Community Fund

We are SO excited to announce that we’ve been awarded a grant from The National Lottery Community Fund to fund all of our monthly workshops from now until July 2025!

With this funding, all of our workshops at The Create Place in Bethnal Green, at The Remakery in Brixton, and online will be free to attend meaning we’ll be able to keep our community of repairers going and growing!

A huge thank you to #NationalLottery players for making our project possible!

Clothes Mending Summary of 2023

Fast Fashion Therapy clothes mending workshop review
A few snaps from our clothes mending workshops across London in 2023

Happy New year! We hope you have enjoyed some time off over the Christmas holidays and are feeling refreshed to learn some new clothes mending skills this year. Time to have a look through your wardrobe and think about clothes you haven’t worn for a while. Could they do with repairing, a quick fix such as a replacement button? Or an alteration to make them smaller, bigger, longer or shorter? Or perhaps a complete refashion? Last year we took a note of all the items of clothes that you brought along to our in person workshops. We have collated the stats and can reveal them here.


The most popular item of clothing to refresh or repair are trousers, shorts or jeans at 20.4% of all garments brought along to our workshops. Dresses are second at 14.1% followed by by accessories at 10.6% including bags, socks and scarves.

Fast Fashion Therapy clothes mending workshop review

Darning and patching are the most popular methods of repair. Followed closely by shortening all types of garments from trousers to tops. Converting a dress into a skirt was the most popular upcycle method.

If you are feeling inspired to mend your own clothes, come along to one of our London workshops to mend your clothes in person. Or join in our collective mend-a-long session we host online once a month to encourage us all to repair our clothes. Find more details about our clothes mending workshops on our Eventbrite page.

Or try mending your clothes at home by following one of our ‘How To’ blog and video posts.


Fast Fashion Therapy clothes mending workshop review

Fast Fashion Therapy Workshops at The Create Place

November 2023 workshop at The Create Place, Bethnal Green

Change to our Monday evening workshops

There is a big change at the Create Place! After five years of running workshops on a Monday evening we are swapping to Saturday lunchtimes. We hope you can make the new scheduling. 

Monthly Workshop Schedule

We run regular clothes mending workshops three times a month in London and online. We hope you can join us to repair your clothes.

Online Mend-a-Long – First Monday of the month
The Remakery in Brixton, London – The Third Monday of the month
The Create Place, Bethnal Green, London – Saturday lunch times. Please see the full schedule above as the date varies each month.  


The Remakery sessions cost £4. The online and Create Place session are free. We no longer have funding for these sessions, if you are able to make a donation we really appreciate it. Either by booking a donation ticket on Eventbrite or we send out a donation link for the Create Place email bookings. The money goes towards our running costs such as sewing supplies, our Zoom account, insurance and first aid certificates. Thanks in advance.

If you would like to book a workshop for your event, place of work, school or college then please get in touch via email on hello@fastfashiontherapy.co.uk – We have a list of workshop ideas here or we can tailor make them for your own requirements.

Clothes mending workshops 2023

Happy fifth birthday to Fast Fashion Therapy!

As we approach our fifth birthday we would like to say a massive thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your continued support. Our workshops have been busier than ever with hundreds of clothes repaired and lots of new friends made. Thank you to everyone who has come along to The Create Place, The Remakery and joined us via Zoom. Thanks to all the charities and businesses who have asked us to teach clothes mending in their place of work. Thanks too if your support has simply been to read our newsletters. It does all make a difference and encourages us to carry on. 

Community Support

Our community clothes mending workshops at The Create Place have been free from July 2022 to July 2023 Thanks to the Tower Hamlets Small Grants Fund. Thank you to the team at East End Community Foundation for their support.  

How Fast Fashion Therapy started

Five years ago Sarah started a clothes repair workshop at The Create Place in Bethnal Green  and Eleanor started a similar workshop at the same time. The team at St Margaret’s House suggested we collaborate to run one workshop. Eleanor had already come up with the catchy name and Fast Fashion Therapy was born! Over the past five years our clothes mending skills and friendship has grown. We enjoy working together, keeping each other motivated and bounce ideas of each other. Our workshops would be nothing without all the support from everyone who has joined a session, whether that is in person or online. Getting together as a group and seeing how many people really are engaged with sustainability is inspiring. It seems like we are all keen to find practical solutions to the problems surrounding us and these collective community experiences are more important than ever!


Autumn Schedule

We are taking a break from workshops in August and will be back in September. There are lots of clothes mending and general sewing workshops taking place over the summer from other workshop providers. Eventbrite is a good place to search for them in your local area.

We have made a slight change to our workshops this Autumn and have reduced our sessions to one a month at The Create Place in Bethnal Green. Please find the new schedule below:

  • 1st Monday of the month: Online mend-a-long via Zoom
  • 3rd Monday of the month: In-person workshop at The Remakery, Brixton
  • 4th Monday of the month: In-person workshop at The Create Place, Bethnal Green

The workshops are not available to book yet, we will let you know via our newsletter, Instagram and Facebook when we have listed them and they are ready to book.


We have lots of ‘how to’ videos over on our blog to help keep you going with your clothes mending during August. 

We look forward to seeing you at a clothes mending workshop in the Autumn.

The Great Big Green Week 2023

5 Ways to get involved by mending your clothes

Today is the start of The Great Big Green Week, but what is it? The Great Big Green Week is the UK’s biggest ever celebration of community action to tackle climate change and protect nature.

Great big green week

Every year, people come together to unleash a wave of support for action to protect the planet. Tens of thousands of people in every corner of the country celebrate the heartfelt, brave, everyday actions being taken to stand up for nature and fight climate change.

We take part by sharing our clothes mending skills through community workshops and online How To videos and blogs. At Fast Fashion Therapy we encourage repair, up-cycling and remodelling of used clothes, looking to break our habit to always buy new. Fix holes in jeans, darn jumpers, shorten sleeves or create a new outfit from something already in the wardrobe.

Here are our 5 tips on how to get involved in this years The Great Big Green Week

1. Join a clothes mending workshop

We host a clothes repair workshop on Monday evenings in London. Our workshops are full until end July but there are lots of other clothes mending workshops taking place around the country. We’ve listed a few taking place in London but if you search ‘Clothes mending workshop’ + your town. Or ‘Repair Cafe’ + your town, then hopefully you will find one. If you are interested in setting up your own clothes repair workshop, get in touch and we can give you some tips.

Ealing Repair Cafe in West London hold regular community clothes mending sessions. More details on their Facebook Page.

2. Mend your clothes at home

If you can’t find a clothes mending workshop close to you then we run an online mend-a-long. We send out a Zoom link once a month and a group of us join in to collectively repair our clothes. We don’t teach at this session, instead it is an hour once a month to encourage us to get our clothes mended. There is lots of opportunity to ask questions and share clothes mending ideas with the group. We have regular attendees and new joiners too, everyone is welcome. Bring along something to repair or sew or knit and join in the chat. Our online mend-a-long is free to join thanks to a grant from Localgiving and Postcode Society Trust, a grant-giving charity funded by players of People’s Postcode Lottery.

We also have a library of videos and blogs to help you with tips on clothes mending techniques.


3. Swap your clothes

We love a clothes swap! The opportunity to swap what you don’t want for things that you do! There are lots popping up around the country. We recommend The Fat Positive Clothes Swap in South London that is for UK size 16+ clothes. Next swap is 1st July, book on Eventbrite.

Friends of the Earth Tower Hamlets have regular swaps in East London for clothes and other items. They are hosting a swap on 17 June at Bow Church and includes a clothes repair workshop by Eco Sunny Jar Hub. Find more details on the Tower Hamlets Council Website.

Or try the regular Hackney Clothes swap, details on Eventbrite.

If you want to organise your own clothes swap head over to the Love Chelmsford website, they have a list of useful tips on how to get started.

4. Upcycle your clothes (T-shirt)

For The Great Big Green Week last year we hosted a workshop on upcycling a T-shirt. We shared the results and more ideas over on our blog.

5. Reduce plastic waste

Microplastic fibres shred from our clothes into the ocean, causing damaging effects. The main textile fibre to create micro plastics is Polyester. It might be known by other names in your clothes label. These are brand names from textile companies who have adapted the basic fibre. The general term is Polyester, which is a man-made synthetic Polymer. Polyester is in 60% of our clothes in the UK and makes up 51% of all the fibres produced globally. It doesn’t require as much water to produce as Cotton but overall it has a more negative effect on our planet.

reduce reuse recycle zero waste how to mend your clothes

How to reduce Microplastic fibre waste

  1. Buy less new products, swapping to second hand clothes. Microplastic fibre waste will still be excreted from our clothes when we wash them but virgin materials are not required to create new clothes. Producing new clothes from Polyester causes negative environmental factors such as heat, chemicals and the use of non-replaceable fossil fuels.
  2. When washing fabrics that contain Polyester or other forms of plastic fibres use a Guppy Friend Bag. Or a similar brand. It helps prevent microplastics from reaching our oceans.
  3. Reduce the number of times clothes are washed. It isn’t necessary to wash clothes after every wear. Air the clothes by an open window or outside. Spot clean any stains.
  4. Repair damaged clothes rather than buying new. Need help? We host weekly workshops in London or join us for an online mend-a-long once a month. We have lots of ‘how to videos’ to help you too.

Love Your Clothes, Love Your Chelmsford Workshop

Free Clothes Mending Workshop for Chelmsford Residents, 20 May 2023

Chelmsford clothes mending workshop

Fast Fashion Therapy was on tour and visited Chelmsford in Essex on Saturday. We hosted two workshops. Residents were asked to book in and bring along a selection of clothes to be mended. A few soft toys and a sofa cushion cover also made an appearance.


Hand sewing clothes repair workshop

The workshop  focused on hand-sewing repair skills, including darning and patching techniques. These techniques work well on holes in knitted and jersey jumpers and t-shirts, as well as tears and holes in jeans, trousers, skirts, and shirts. We’ll also helped participants with simple fixes like sewing on buttons, taking up hems, and fixing small rips in seams.

Repairing Jeans


Repairing shirts

Thanks to everyone who came along and made both workshops inclusive and welcoming. We enjoyed listening to all the sustainable ideas being swapped for the local area. Huge thanks to Emilia from Chelmsford Council for inviting us along and all the brilliant organisation.

We are super impressed with the Love Your Chelmsford website. There is a mass of information on there about sustainable fashion with easy to follow advice. There is even a full checklist and tips to help you organise your own clothes swap. Plus an upcycling competition for teenagers.

upcycling competition

Top 5 tips for mindful clothes mending

This week is Mental Health Awareness Week 2023 with a focus on anxiety. We named our clothes mending workshops Fast Fashion Therapy nearly 5 years ago. It soon became apparent that the workshops are a therapeutic space for the participants (and us) along with the clothes being repaired . Despite the sessions being busy, clothes repairing is a mindful and therapeutic process.

Our favourite way to mend clothes is sewing by hand rather on the machine. Don’t get us wrong, we love using the sewing machine for a quick and secure finish. Sewing and mending clothes by hand has a meditative effect. Using a needle and thread (or yarn) to darn a hole and patch a hole, take up a hem and many other ways to repair clothes.

Saturday afternoon at The Create Place, Bethnal Green, London

This week there was a focus on hand sewing at our workshops. Ellen wanted to add a button to her wrap top. She decided to make a feature of it and stitched a welted button hole instead of using the zig zag on the machine. It is still work in progress and she is going to finish the final rows of stitching at home. That is the other great thing about repairing clothes by hand, you can take it anywhere! We’ve been known to darn and patch on the bus and train or our favourite, at home with a podcast on the go.

Lisa wanted to darn a hole in her favourite cardigan and practiced on a sample piece of knit before working on the garment. Kate repaired a hole in her jeans. She started on the sewing machine but switched to hand sewing so she could have more control over what she was doing and finish at home.


During lockdown we explored this further for Pebble Magazine where we shared our top 5 tips for mindful clothes mending:


We host a free online workshop on the first Monday evening of every month. We welcome regular and new attendees. Sign up for our newsletter or register on Eventbrite and we will send you the Zoom link to join. Bring along some clothes to mend and join in the chat. Next session is 5 June, 7:30pm.


Our online mend-a-long is free to join thanks to a grant from Localgiving and Postcode Society Trust, a grant-giving charity funded by players of People’s Postcode Lottery.

Fashion Revolution Week 2023

Sign the Manifesto for a Fashion Revolution


Remembering the Rana Plaza tragedy 10 years on, this year Fashion Revolution are asking us to sign their 10 point manifesto for a fairer fashion industry. To treat textile workers with respect and for them to be paid a living wage. Additionally, treating our clothes with respect. Understanding the work and resources that goes into our clothes before they end up in our wardrobes.

What do you do with your clothes when you no longer have use for them? They might no longer fit, be damaged or perhaps was bought on a whim and never suited. We all have these moments. Is there something you can do to make your clothes last for longer?

From the 10 point manifesto we have chosen to focus on point 7, which encourages the longer life of the clothes that are already in our wardrobe. Reducing the need to buy new, using up the Earth’s valuable resources and preventing clothes from reaching landfill.

At Fast Fashion Therapy we teach and encourage people to repair their clothes at our regular workshops. We also have a free online library of ‘how to’ videos and blogs to help with small repairs that prevent us from wearing our clothes. Click on the below photos to be directed to the relevant blog post.


what do you need for a sewing mending kit?

how to sew on a button

how to darn a hole in a jumper

how to take up a hem


“Fashion Revolution Week 2023 marks 10 years since the Rana Plaza tragedy. Using the 10 points of our manifesto as building blocks, our Global Network of Fashion Revolutionaries in 75 countries are bringing people together to build a vision for radical change. Find out more about the campaign and how to get involved here.”

Join one of our in person or online workshops to repair your clothes. Find more details on our online calendar or search ‘Fast Fashion Therapy’ on Eventbrite.

clothes mending workshops

Clothes Mending Audit 2022

As the year comes to a close, we’re looking back at our year in mending, repair & upcycling.

We’ve loved welcoming so many people to our workshops throughout 2022 – whether at our regular workshops in Bethnal Green and Brixton, at one-off events and workshops around the UK or meeting people from across the world in our online workshops.

We hope our workshops have inspired the people attended to mend, stitch or upcycle their clothes or textiles more – we’ve learned so many new techniques from you as well. We’re so happy you’ve created this community with us 🪡 🧵🥰

Clothes repair mending workshops London

This year, you helped to save 192 items of clothing from going to landfill in our workshops.

Trousers, shorts and jeans come out top – so many of you have patched up holes or altered waistbands to keep your favourite clothing going.

Clothes mending repair sewing workshops London

Keeping a track of this info helps us to know what techniques are most useful for the people attending our workshops to learn. Now more than ever repair and sewing skills are so valuable in saving ourselves money, reducing waste and creating a more sustainable fashion industry.

Clothes mending repair workshops London

We couldn’t have done it without you – thank you so much to all of our community that keeps Fast Fashion Therapy alive!

Clothes mending workshops learn to sew

Thanks to St. Margaret’s House and The Remakery for all your support and for creating incredible community spaces for us to run our workshops in.

Thanks to East End Community Foundation and #THSmallGrantsFund for funding our workshops at The Create Place in Bethnal Green.

Thanks to Localgiving and the People’s Postcode Lottery for giving us one of their Magic Little Grants for funding our online workshops.

Clothes Mending in 2022

A huge thank you to everyone who has supported our community clothes mending workshops this year. All of the mending techniques and tips that we share mean nothing without the people who come to our workshops or connect with us online. Getting together as a group and seeing how many people really are engaged with sustainability is inspiring. It seems like we are all keen to find practical solutions to the problems surrounding us and these collective community experiences are more important than ever!


Thank you to St Margaret’s house, The Create Place and The Remakery for the use of your warm and welcoming venues and for sharing the news to a wider group of people. Our workshops at The Create Place are free to attend thanks to Tower Hamlets Small Grants Fund.


Our online mend-a-long is free to join thanks to a grant from Localgiving and Postcode Society Trust, a grant-giving charity funded by players of People’s Postcode Lottery.
Want to join us next year? We are taking bookings for our 2023 workshops on Eventbrite or send us an email. More details on the calendar section of our website.

Wishing you all a happy holidays and a healthy 2023. Sarah & Eleanor x