Primark rolls out repair workshops and durability standards

Primark has this week stitched together a series of new durability and repair commitments designed to extend the life of its clothes and in the process reduce their environmental footprint.

The retail giant yesterday announced a series of new waste reduction initiatives, including an independent research project to assess the durability of its clothes, the expansion of its free clothing repair workshop programme following a 12-month pilot, and support for the development of a new durability standard for the fashion industry.

The company said it is to work with waste charity WRAP as a signatory to its Textiles 2030 initiative to help create durability benchmarks that can serve to extend the lifespan of garments.

Primark has also unveiled a new enhanced durability wash standard using a framework based on WRAP's Clothing Longevity Protocol. More than half its denim products tested to date against the standard have passed, while socks and all jersey categories across its womenswear, menswear, and kidswear ranges are now being pilot tested to see how they fare.

Moreover, following a successful pilot spanning 43 sites across the UK and Republic of Ireland last year, Primark yesterday confirmed it is to expand its free repair workshop programme across more of its stores.

Sessions led by designer and fashion lecturer Lorraine Mitchell and stylist Janina Gruber will aim to help customers prolong the life of clothes and save money amid the ongoing cost-of-living crisis by teaching skills such as sewing buttons, repairing zips, and mending tears, as well as lessons in customisation.

In addition to repair workshops at Primark's Manchester Market Street store, there will be a dedicated space hosting free monthly workshops in collaboration with community partners.

Primark has also supported these sessions by creating an online content series featuring video tutorials on everything from threading a needle and sewing buttons to invisible zips.

Finally, in an effort to better understand the factors that impact how long clothing lasts, Primark has partnered with environmental and behaviour change charity Hubbub and the University of Leeds School of Design to study the physical durability of women's and men's clothing available at a range of different price points.

Primark will also work with Hubbub to gauge consumer attitudes to clothing and examine consumer wearing and washing habits. The findings of both these studies are to be shared later this year.

Lynne Walker, director of Primark Cares, said the company was working to ensure durable clothing is affordable for all consumers whatever their budget.

"This has never been more important for our customers," she explained. "That's why we want to see the introduction of a durability standard across the fashion industry, and we want to understand more about the behaviours and attitudes which impact how we all wear and care for our clothes.

"We know that many clothes that are discarded may still have plenty of wear left in them and that's why we want to help people learn new repair skills to be able to sew, fix a button or even customise a piece of clothing and give it a new lease of life."  

Catherine David, director of collaboration and change at WRAP, said the organisation's research had found that wearing clothes for longer has a positive environmental impact. "Both the physical and emotional durability of clothing, are therefore really important factors when considering the clothes we buy," she said.