Patagonia to Open Apparel Repair Center

Outdoor apparel brand Patagonia has partnered with a Dutch textile platform to create a new apparel repair center for affiliated brands. The goal, according to Just-Style, is to divert 1 million kilograms (2,204,622 lbs.) of apparel waste from ending up in landfills.

The United Repair Center will be located in Amsterdam for brands and consumers to repair their clothing, giving garments more longevity and creating an eco-friendly alternative to just tossing the product after the perceived end of its lifecycle. The center aims to make 300,000 clothing repairs annually while creating jobs and training workers.

"Structural change is needed in the textile industry," Willem Swager, director of finance and operations EMEA at Patagonia, told Just-Style. "Patagonia, therefore, calls on brands not only to look at more sales, but rather at stimulating reuse and being able to wear clothing longer through repair and recycling. It should become normal for more clothing brands to offer this as a service and to see this as business as usual."

Patagonia partners with Makers Unite on Amsterdam-based repair centre | @apparel_res
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Patagonia has long prioritized environmentalism and ethics in the apparel space. In April of last year, it announced that it would no longer allow brands to place logos on Patagonia apparel, citing concerns that branded apparel becomes obsolete once an employee leaves or a company closes down, or if the end-user no longer has an association with the brand.

That may be somewhat misguided, but at least Patagonia's heart is in the right place. And with its apparel repair program, the company is taking another step toward keeping its clothes from ending up as waste. If apparel recycling and repair businesses become more common across the world, it could open up opportunities for people to simply unwanted promotional apparel rather than tossing it in the trash can.