Saturday 26 April & Saturday 3 May 2025, Visible Mending: Ancient and Modern with Kate Sekules

14:00 - 17:00 BST (British Summer Time, London, UK)

Online event, hosted on Zoom by Kate Sekules of @visiblemend

Kate Sekules is a cultural historian and mending researcher, artist, and educator based in New  York. Frequently called “the queen of visible mending” she teaches the skills and joys of  personalising, enhancing and stylishly extending the life of your clothes, while also seeking to establish mending as a discrete academic discipline. As scholar, she has presented research at over two dozen symposia (Textile Society of America, British Museum, Comité International  d’Histoire de l’Art, Association of Dress Historians, etc), and is completing her doctoral dissertation A History and Theory of Mending (Bard Graduate Center). As a practitioner, her work has been exhibited widely (RISD Museum, Winterthur, Cornell Biennial) and featured in media from the New York Times to Le Monde and NHK News, Japan. She is an assistant professor of fashion history at Pratt Institute, and “Mending Fashion” at Parsons School of Design, hosts  #MendMarch on Instagram, and is the author of MEND! A Refashioning Manual and Manifesto (Penguin, 2020). 

Outline of the workshop
This workshop explores two techniques for creative mending, one classic, one innovative, and both fun ways to customise your clothes in your own unique style. First, after a sprint through the millennia-long hidden history of mending, we will darn: the method of weaving with a needle mostly used to fix holes in knitwear, but adaptable for most materials. We will play with placement, style, and colour, troubleshoot, and review two further darning methods. In part two,  Kate will introduce punk smocking, her own versatile method of extemporary stitching that covers stains and damage while reshaping and enhancing a shirt or tee. Individual advice and methodologies will be explored. Together we will discover the joys of menditation, countering industrial apparel with self-made couture, and evolving personal wardrobe practices. This course will equip you with tools and mendspiration for a lifelong design journey. Mend, but make it fashion! 

Level of experience required: suitable for beginner to advanced  

A material pack will be sent to participants before the workshop containing:

• Two vintage (deadstock) darning needles, one ballpoint
• Two skeins of medium-weight wool yarn, in contrasting (surprise!) colours
• Two vintage (deadstock) extra-long needles, made in Redditch, England
• Two skeins of mercerised cotton crochet thread, one black, one white
• “Little Book of Mends: Audacious Fixes for Holey Clothes” booklet

In addition to the materials pack provided, you will need to provide the following materials and  equipment: 

• Your own garments to mend and customise
• Scissors or snips
• A piece of paper 
  

Please note: material packs are shipped on an insured, trackable delivery service. Any customs duties, delays, lost or undeliverable packages are the responsibility of the customer. Once a material pack leaves the workshop tutors' hands with a tracking number, the seller has no further obligation to the buyer.

Workshop recording: 
The workshop will be recorded and the recording will be shared with you after the workshop. Please allow 7 working days for us to send you the recording.



Workshop Cancellation Policy

All places reserved for workshops are non-refundable. However, if you let us know you are not able to attend a workshop you have booked at least two weeks before the event, we will offer a credit note.

If you require additional information about this workshop please contact the events team, events@selvedge.org.