IN May, a book was published titled Broken: Mending and repair in a throwaway world. It tackles the reality that we live in what the author, Katie Treggiden, describes as a ‘single-use society’, where fashion is fast, disposability is the norm and it’s easier to replace than to repair. She traces the linear take-make-waste model that has dominated Western economies back to the Industrial Revolution and champions the need to transform it into something more circular for the good of our planet, and ourselves.
Mending—or the desire to have things mended—is both generational and attitudinal. For some, it’s instinctive. My mother-in-law, born in 1938, has never needed to