Mending Clothes and Humanity Together: A Night at the Pickerington Library

Published by Priscila Teixeira 

What would you do with a favorite pair of jeans that finally gave out?

Most of us know the answer. We'd do what everyone does. We'd throw them away, scroll through a few options online, and replace them within the week. It takes ten minutes and costs less than lunch.

What most of us don't know is what that decision costs the planet.

On April 18, The Fashion Community brought Mend in Public to the Pickerington Public Library and for two hours, twenty-five people chose differently.

Why We Mend in Public

Mend in Public is one of The Fashion Community's flagship events. We take it on the road across Central Ohio — to art galleries, school rooms, public libraries, community centers — anywhere people gather and are willing to sit together and do something with their hands.

The concept is disarmingly simple: bring something that needs mending. We'll help you fix it. If you don't have anything to mend, come anyway; we bring materials, and we'll teach you something.

But the reason we do it runs much deeper than that.

The fashion industry is the second largest polluter on the planet. Of the 100 billion garments produced each year, 92 million tons end up in landfills, the equivalent of a garbage truck full of clothes every single second. Every. Single. Second.

The average American buys 68 new pieces of clothing every year. And research shows that 65% of those items are discarded within twelve months.¹ We have built a culture of disposability so efficient, so normalized, so invisible that most of us participate in it every day without ever noticing.

Mend in Public is a small, gentle, joyful act of resistance to all of that. It says: this item has more life in it. And so do you.

The Room

Twenty-five people RSVP'ed. Twenty-five people showed up.

That matters. In a world of half-kept commitments and last-minute cancellations, a full room of people who said they'd be there and then were there, that is its own kind of statement.

The Pickerington Library's meeting room hummed with the particular energy of a room full of people doing things with their hands. Not scrolling. Not waiting. Making. Fixing. Asking. Listening. Learning.

The Fashion Community was represented by three people that night: Kendall, Logan, and me; each of us working a different corner of the room, each of us in our element.

Logan commanded a packed table from start to finish. She taught hand-stitching techniques and fielded a steady stream of questions with the patience and enthusiasm of someone who genuinely loves what they know. Guests who had arrived not knowing quite where to start left with a new skill in their muscle memory.

Kendall anchored the two sewing machines. Guest after guest brought jeans — beloved, worn-in, irreplaceable pairs that had finally split a seam or were too big on the waste — and Kendall met every one of them where they were. Alterations, reinforcements, fixes that would add years of life to garments people had been reluctant to let go of.

I spent the afternoon between two worlds: teaching embroidery at my table — that slow, meditative art of making something beautiful, its like drawing with thread — and moving through the room to share what I call the dark side of fashion.

The Dark Side of Fashion Facts

I share these numbers at every Mend in Public event. Not to depress anyone. Not to lecture. But because when people understand the true scale of what is happening, the act of mending a pair of jeans becomes something entirely different. It becomes meaningful. It becomes, in its quiet way, radical.

Here is what I told the room:

Every second — right now, as you read this — the equivalent of a garbage truck full of clothing is being buried in a landfill or burned. During the two hours we were there together a total of 7,200 garbage trucks full of textile were dumped on landfills (or incinerated).

The average American buys 68 pieces of clothing a year. Most of it is worn a handful of times, if that. Manufactures around the globe have already produced enough clothing to dress every person on earth for the next 250 years. We keep making more anyway.

The culture of disposability has taught us that clothes are cheap, replaceable, and temporary, transactional. But the true cost of that convenience is paid somewhere else — by garment workers, by waterways, by the atmosphere, by the communities living downstream of textile factories in Bangladesh and Indonesia and Ghana.

Every single time, when I share these facts, I watch something shift in the room.

And then I celebrate them. I celebrate every person sitting in that room, because they showed up. Because they chose to mend instead of replace. Because they are, in the most practical and personal way possible, part of the solution.

That is the Columbus Fashion Academy philosophy at work in the community: awareness, followed by agency. Not guilt. Not shame. Knowledge and then the tools to do something with it.

What People Brought, What People Made

The range of projects in that room was a portrait of real life.

Old jeans with zipper tab issues. Children's clothes with loose buttons threatening to become a choking hazard. A favorite sweatpant with a pocket hole worn through by years of use. 

Some guests arrived without a project at all. They came to learn. They sat down, picked up the materials The Fashion Community provided, and practiced stitches they had never tried before. Running stitch. Satin stitch. The kind of embroidered mending that doesn't hide the repair, it celebrates it.

By the end of the evening, things that had been broken were whole again. And something else happened too, the thing that always happens at these events: people talked to each other. Strangers leaned over to admire each other's work. Someone asked for help and someone else offered it before we could get there first.

That is what The Fashion Community comes to build. Not just mended clothes. Mended connections.

Thank You, Pickerington Public Library

We are so grateful to the Pickerington Public Library for inviting us in and for making this event possible.

Libraries are one of the last truly free, truly public spaces in American civic life — and the Pickerington Library understands that programming like Mend in Public belongs inside its walls. Open to all, rooted in education and community.

Thank you for your partnership. Thank you for the space. Thank you for believing that sustainable fashion education is a community service.

Come Find Us

Mend in Public events happen all across Central Ohio, year-round. We go where we're invited — libraries, galleries, schools, community centers. All materials are provided. All skill levels are welcome. All you need to bring is something that needs love, or simply yourself.

To find upcoming Mend in Public events, visit talkingfashion.net. And if you'd like to host a Mend in Public event at your organization, or circle of friends, please reach out — we would love to come to you.

About the Author

Priscila Teixeira is an award-winning community leader, passionate educator, fashion artist, and public speaker, dedicated to empowering people through creativity and fostering meaningful change. She is the Founder and CEO of Columbus Fashion Academy, a local social enterprise transforming lives through sustainable fashion, and the Founder and Executive Director of The Fashion Community, a nonprofit human services agency committed to caring for all people through innovative programs and initiatives that cultivate creativity. With a postgraduate degree in Fashion Business and Communications, graduating cum laude, Priscila has earned recognition for her work across Brazil, Cuba, and the United States, spanning roles in major corporations to small businesses. Passionate about human rights, justice, equality, inclusion, fairness, and artistic freedom; she believes adults, parents, educators, and community leaders have a responsibility to guide and support children and youth. She believes our community must lead and inspire by example, showing care for people and the planet. Through her work, Priscila blends artistry and advocacy to inspire others and create a more sustainable and equitable world.

References

1. PIRG Education Fund. "How Many Clothes Are Too Many?" https://pirg.org/articles/how-many-clothes-are-too-many/
2. Earth.org. "10 Concerning Fast Fashion Waste Statistics." https://earth.org/statistics-about-fast-fashion-waste/
3. Ellen MacArthur Foundation. "A New Textiles Economy: Redesigning Fashion's Future." https://ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/a-new-textiles-economy