Last year, Marina Diamantidi started a monthly garment-saving workshop at Birch Studios and Gallery. Common Thread has become an essential piece of the make do and mend revival across Merseyside.
The first event referenced historic traditions of textiles as a communal craft. That line has stayed with it, but at this point it’s got its own community, and its own self-driven history of mending worn and forgotten textiles.
Marina is a professional costume designer and wardrobe supervisor, working in a fashion and production landscape where immediacy is often rewarded over thought. Common Thread is evidence that it doesn’t have to be that way. Slowing down and fixing broken things over a cup of tea, in a room full of like-minded people is just a better way of producing and caring for fashion.
In its second year, the event has begun running workshops to add life to unloved teams – with Lino printed textiles last month, and who knows what next month.
Part of why this is important to highlight too, as well as the direct opportunity to fix stuff, is that it’s a perfect example of how socially beneficial these events can be. And it’s not the only one.
Repair Cafes are popping up all over the region now, fixing sessions are happening in libraries, community hubs and parks.
This is just one of a massive wave of regular events created and run by volunteers to help you learn to mend your own things. But they also need your help, as many of them struggle without enough volunteers willing to offer their time and skills to make these groups sustainable longterm.
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Words from multiple sources, Birch Studios, Marina Diamantidi, Kathryn Wainwright
