Marks & Spencer is introducing a dedicated clothing repair service through a partnership with clothing repair and alterations experts, SOJO. The service follows new insight from M&S revealing only 10% of the population is confident enough to repair clothing themselves, and 60% of consumers are looking for retailers to offer more services that support them to lower their carbon footprint.
Founded in 2021 by Josephine Philips, SOJO is on a mission to make tailoring and repairs more accessible. The team comprises tailors, riders, developers and creatives working to accelerate change in the fashion industry. With a shared set of values, the two businesses have come together as partners in change.
Launching in August, the ‘M&S fixed by SOJO’ hub will support M&S customers to give their M&S clothes ‘Another life.’ and reduce textile waste, a key pillar of the retailer’s Plan A roadmap to drive the circular economy. The partnership also builds on the retailer’s established clothes donation scheme with Oxfam, which has collected over 36 million items of clothing, raising an estimated £23m to tackle poverty around the world.
M&S customers will be able to book a range of bespoke repair services, from zip replacements to invisible knitwear mending, through a dedicated online hub.
Supporting the new partnership with SOJO is M&S’ Plan A Accelerator Fund, which aims to take rapid action on climate change through a series of innovation projects. Earlier this year, the fund was used to support an online postal trial with Oxfam, which enabled customers to donate their unwearable – but too good to waste – clothing, alongside their pre-loved wearable clothing directly to Oxfam to be resold, reused, or recycled.
Commenting is Josephine Phillips, founder and CEO of SOJO. “It has always been a core mission of ours at SOJO to make repairing clothes mainstream and to extend the life of as many garments as possible. I’m so excited that M&S has chosen to launch a repair service with us at SOJO as it’s an incredibly big step towards that mission.
“As a brand that has remained a firm constant in almost every household and wardrobe in Britain, this partnership with truly bring easy, accessible and convenient repairs to the masses. Beyond that, as one of the longest-standing British brands, having M&S join our Pledge to Repair adds such a great weight to our call for industry-wide change here in the UK.”
For further information on SOJO, please click here.
