The Worn Wear Tour is back and once again Patagonia will be making repairs on wetsuits, as well as repairing surf (and other) apparel. All brands are welcome as long as the suits are dry and there is one repair per person. See the dates below for the rest of summer and into autumn and get yourself to one of these locations. 

13/8/2019 – 14/8/2019
Le Surfing
Seignosse, France

16/8/2019
ATS Surf Shop
Plouharnel, France

17/8/2019
The Swenson House
Audierne, France

18/8/2019
Baie des trépassés
Plogoff, France

19/8/2019
The Surf Room
Audierne, France

21/8/2019 – 22/8/2019
The Surf Yard
St. Ouens – Jersey, France

25/8/2019 – 26/8/2019
Freshwater West
Pembroke, Wales

29/8/2019
Troggs Surf School
Portrush, Ireland

31/8/2019 – 1/9/2019
Tullan Strand Beach
Bundoran, Ireland

 

3/9/2019
The Green Room Surf School
Lahinch, Ireland

4/9/2019 – 5/9/2019
Moy Hill Farm
Lahinch, Ireland

7/9/2019 – 8/9/2019
Secret Spot
Scarborough, UK

12/9/2019 – 13/9/2019
Bellheaven Beach
Dunbar, Scotland

14/9/2019 – 15/9/2019
Seabanks
Tynemouth, UK

20/9/2019 – 21/9/2019
Uni München
Munich, Germany

24/9/2019 – 25/9/2019
Langbrett Berlin
Berlin, Germany

27/9/2019 – 28/9/2019
Langbrett Hamburg
Hamburg, Germany

So get your old suits ready for repair! Here Patagonia explains the concept behind the Worn Wear Tour. 

Tell us about the Worn Wear programme?
We believe that one of the most responsible things we can do as a company is to make high-quality product that lasts for years and can be repaired so you don’t have to buy more of it. Our multi-faceted Worn Wear programme includes a trade-in programme, shopping used Patagonia gear online (wornwear.com US only), repairs through DIY workshops and tours, and responsible apparel recycling practices. According to WRAP UK, using clothing an additional nine months reduces the carbon, water and waste footprints by 20-30% each. Additionally, repairing and reusing usually requires less resources than the energy and chemicals required to recycle a garment.

How has the programme evolved? 
The inspiration and seeds of Worn Wear were planted in 2005 as the Common Threads Recycling Programme. This was Patagonia’s effort to take back all 100% polyester garments for closed-loop, chemical recycling and use the output of the process – 100% recycled yarn — as a raw material for new clothing. While this was extremely successful from materials and technological standpoint, it didn’t scale because Patagonia clothing is so durable that there really isn’t much that needs to be recycled. This realisation led us to expand Common Threads from a recycling programme to a mutual partnership with our customers to take full responsibility for the stuff we make and they purchase – including repairing and reusing garments before recycling them. In 2011, Common Threads Recycling re-launched as the Common Threads Partnership with a New York Times ad on Black Friday that carried the headline “Don’t Buy This Jacket” and suggested that we should only buy what we truly need and then care for it.

Over the next few years, a blog called Worn Wear was developed by Lauren and Keith Malloy that celebrated the relationship with the garments we love. The value that stories have to make us feel is far greater than preaching an ethos, and so we joined forces in 2013 to make Worn Wear about repairing, reusing, recycling and celebrating the stories we wear.  WornWear.com, our trade-in programme started in April 2017 (US only).

Today we have over 70 repair centres located in Patagonia stores all over the world that repair clothing for free or for a nominal charge and in 2018 we repaired over 100,000 garments globally. At our Reno repair facility – the largest in North America – we have over 70 repair technicians. In Europe, last year, we held 56 Worn Wear events, attended by over 25,000 people.

Find out more here