Last month, the sportswear giant Adidas declared its latest (and perhaps boldest) step towards circular fashion and apparel by partnering with the British on-demand tailoring and repair platform, The Seam to pilot a new Repair & Care service for customers looking to give their favourite garments a new lease of life, rather than throwing their worn-out and much loved items away.

In the weeks since the announcement, the partnership has received recognition as a major step forward for bringing accessible circular economy services (repair, alterations, and refurbishment – something that has for too long has been either reserved for higher-end brands or carried with it a stigma of extreme frugality) to a mainstream, high street fashion brand. And in doing so, The Seam is bringing the circular economy to where it matters the most – straight to the masses.

Layla Sargent, founder and ceo of The Seam is a specialist in what she does. And what she does isn’t simply mending people’s worn-out wardrobe, but orchestrating a nation-wide (and soon to be international) network of skilled ‘Makers’ – specialists in fashion repairs of all disciplines and all of whom are vetted against some stringent criteria to ‘make the grade’ – in order to provide an ‘on-demand’ service that spans the length and breadth of the country.

But her business does more than this still. It offers a bespoke service to brands through meticulously gathered customer care and repair data that can then be used to inform brand owners and labels on all sorts of critical criteria including materiality, longevity, customer wear habits, and a whole lot more.

So, with data, an expanding network of skilled specialists across the country, and a history of success with high street and mainstream brands, The Seam has everything it needs to offer a serious approach to the circular economy at fashion retail. Primed as it is for the inevitable explosion of fashion’s care and repair system, we thought it was high time to learn more about the team behind it all.

Hi Layla, thanks so much for taking the time to chat with us and massive congratulations on the partnership with Adidas – it’s awesome!

What is the significance of this partnership both in terms of granting customers that accessibility to the clothing repairs market and for raising awareness of the circular economy? 

Thank you! The Seam was founded in 2019, and in such a short time, we’ve seen a huge increase in customer demand for care and repair. As we’ve grown, we’ve been fuelled by a cultural wave that’s embracing longevity. Still, there has always been a correlation between the cost of new items and the willingness to spend on care and repair. Simply, the more an item costs to buy, the more its owner will be willing to spend on maintaining it. As such, the luxury and premium fashion space is where we’ve seen the fastest growth in recent years. Consumers buying more accessible products are increasingly interested in care and repair, but they need lower cost services, clearer pricing, and fast turnarounds. 

Our partnership with Adidas has allowed us to explore some of these product challenges, and design a variation of our typical user journey that we are excited to begin testing with a high street and activewear segment of the market.

At the same time, we are also a marketplace, working with skilled Makers across the UK, and we are dedicated to paying them fairly for their skills. Balancing these two desires is an intriguing challenge in a wider culture of disposable fashion, but this partnership really brings our aspirations together and proves that caring for our belongings can be simple and affordable. 

Well it’s brilliant… We wish we came up with the idea! How did this all come together for you? What got you started on this journey?

Way before The Seam, I was born and raised in Birmingham by my grandmother who was a professional dressmaker for more than 65 years. Through my early life, I learned from her the importance of care and repair along with the potential of alterations to tailor clothes to fit, and embed them with memories and personalisation.

When I moved to London in 2019, without my grandmother nearby to tap into her sewing skills, I needed to find someone to help me care for a pair of jeans. I found that the tailoring industry was one of two very paradoxical worlds – on the one side, high street dry cleaners that felt budget and impersonal, and on the other, Savile Row tailors who felt exclusive and expensive. I knew there must be local people in my community – just like my grandmother – with the skills to help and the desire to profit from their craft. 

I created The Seam – a two-sided marketplace – to connect customers and Makers and help people care for their wardrobes. Today, Makers on The Seam not only include tailors and dressmakers, but cobblers, leather restorers, knitwear menders, sneaker cleaners, jewellers, and so much more. 

It’s very interesting that you talk about the extreme ends of the scale when it comes to perception or accessibility to care and repair services. What are some of the biggest – or most common – barriers to the circular fashion economy?

The biggest barrier is that this market has been fragmented and slow to adopt a digital future. There are an estimated 26,000 clothing repair and alterations shops across the UK, but these skilled businesses are often difficult to discover or book online. Customers have typically needed to seek out multiple specialists or businesses to care for different types of items in their wardrobe, like shoes, knitwear, bridal and jewellery. The Seam solves these problems for the customers and the service providers through our 2-sided tech platform that matches customers’ items with the right specialist for the job, and handles bookings, payments, reviews and support all in one place. 

What role do brands like Adidas (and other brand owners) have to play in driving forward the circular economy and services like repairs? How can brands start to take ownership?

We’ve always believed that brands will be one of the biggest drivers behind the shift to a culture of care. As fashion shifts from a linear model to a circular one, this means brands need to adopt ways of connecting with their communities beyond marketing new products. Enabling customers to access aftercare services is one compelling way that brands can not only embrace circularity, but the data that comes from these services can also drive insights that enable these brands to design longer lasting, more durable products. 

What role do you think this launch with Adidas will now play in powering up the transition to more circular models or services? After all, if Adidas can do it, why can’t all high street brands, right?

We hope that this partnership launch signals to the fashion industry a wave of circular services being embraced by fashion brands and retailers. Prior to working with Adidas, we’ve launched repair partnerships with Net A Porter, LK Bennett, Rat & Boa, Karen Millen, COS and more.

There is a care and repair story that fits every retailer, where it’s offering in-store alterations services, sneaker cleaning, knitwear repair or even customer workshops and events. 

I’d love to explore The Seam’s network of skilled seamstresses and repair specialists… because you’re not just offering these services but your building a community of skilled workers and bringing that conversation of repair and reuse in fashion to life. Why has this been so successful to date? Do you train people up? Does this put a cap on expansion plans – or is it the opposite? How does this model lend itself to growth (across markets/across industries etc)?

We’ve had huge demand from skilled Makers since the business began. Over time, we’ve built a robust onboarding and vetting system that enables us to deliver high levels of quality control and expert craftsmanship, as well as ensure that customers and Makers can easily chat to one another on our platform. We’ve also developed specific training and upskilling programs around in-demand services. Upskilling our Makers allows them to balance seasonal service fluctuation, so for example, a tailor who alters occasionwear in the summer months may learn to offer knitwear mending through the winter. 

What message would you like to give to brands still reluctant to embrace these circular services? How easy is it to pilot?

When a customer comes to The Seam, whether direct or through a partnership, we collect data on what items and brands they are bringing to us for care and repair. This means that for any brand interested in dipping their toes in the water, we more than likely already have a wealth of data on how their customers are already caring for their items.

On our site, brands can request a data report into how their products are already being maintained through The Seam. Care and repair services are simple to roll out on a trial basis, and we love when brand partners are eager to test and learn as they begin to offer these circular services. 

Well that’s a pretty exciting prospect for brands to be able to get to that level of data and customer insight that could go ion to influence the actual design of products. Big question, but what’s next for The Seam – have you plans for expansion outside of the UK?

We’re working on a number of exciting partnership launches in the coming months and also exploring big changes in how customers book, send and fit their items. And yes, we’ll also be working on international expansion in the coming months, where we’re so excited to introduce our services beyond the UK. 

Wow! Well, it seems like you guys have got it all pretty much sewn up. If you can pardon the pun… Let’s pull another thread then and ask, what’s next for sustainable fashion on that pathway to 2030 and beyond?

Repair has a huge role to play in shaping a sustainable path forward for fashion, not only because we can extend the life of existing products, but also because we’re compiling data at scale that can inform the industry about how products are looking after post-purchase and what types of materials, fastenings, furnishings and design choices stand the test of time. More than physical durability, care and repair data also gives revolutionary insight into what products and designs connect with people emotionally, and are deemed ‘worth’ repairing and rewearing years on.

Absolutely, and fashion brands can look at that data and presumably use that to inform how they design their next line… it’s fantastic! Layla, thank you so much for such a fascinating talk. Best of luck with the Adidas pilot and we hope to be writing and reading a whole lot more about you and The Seam as our relationship with sustainability and sustainable fashion continues.

Thank you so much, Rob.