I know there are quite a few sewists in the house, but me, I can't even get the needle through the thread and my attempts to re-sew a button in exactly the right place on a Jean Muir coat were humiliatingly inept. I do not do or make things with my hands. And my rule is, as my Jacobean manor house friends discovered when I stayed with them last weekend and they invited me to play boules, it is not that I am competitive, it's that I only do things I'm good at. Which is good, because it leaves so much time for lying around doing nothing.
But the next big thing, apparently is home remodelling of your own clothes.
Lilli Rose Wicks hopes to change our habits. In 2007, she won the Visionary Knitwear award at Graduate Fashion Week, and was inundated with offers to design for the high street. She turned them down as she felt the stores weren't willing or able to change their environmental practices. Wicks' work is made from organic or recycled materials. Her passion has always been to make or refashion her clothes rather than buy them new. "Before I buy anything, I work out whether I can make it myself," she says.
Wicks now runs workshops, in collaboration with the Soil Association, on customising clothes, and that is why I arrive at Wicks' cottage in Somerset with an armful of my own clothes, which, instead of joining the 300,000 tonnes of garments that end up in recycling bins, are going to be refashioned. I'm nervous because, having first-hand experience of my sewing, I'm not sure I want to mess about with my clothes. "Sewing is something you can learn. Everyone starts somewhere," Wicks assures me. Having spilt oil on a skirt I like, I'm hoping Wicks can help me hide the stain so I can keep wearing it.
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