Ripping My Mechanic Suit Led Me to an Economy of Local Fixers

Don’t replace what you can repair. I’m big on this, and not just because I get sentimentally attached to almost everything I acquire. Keeping stuff out of landfills is noble, and in my experience, older things in basically every category—from tools to cars to clothing—tend to be better made than new ones. That’s one reason DIY repair skills are great to have. But if you don’t have talent or time, you might be able to turn to your local community for great pricing and services you may not find online.

I didn’t intend to write a post celebrating the cottage industry on Amazon Prime Day—and I recognize there’s some irony in posting this alongside our favorite buy-new-stuff deals. But I just got my mechanic suit back from a local seamstress and I’m so stoked with how well it was repaired that I felt compelled to blog about it.

A few weeks ago I squatted to pick something up and backed right into a particularly sharp corner of metal I’d left lying around in my garage. It put a big ol’ rip in the nice, thick Carhartt mechanic overalls my wife got me for Christmas a couple of years ago. I could buy a new one at Wal-Mart for cheap, or spend a couple hundred bucks replacing the high-end one I had. But man, mine was still in great condition after years of service.

Unfortunately, manual sewing is exceptionally challenging for me due to my crippled left hand and I don’t have the space to get a sewing machine. I don’t really want to take the time to master the art of a nice hemline right now, either. Googling turned up the names of a few tailors and seamstresses that I might try, but I live in the boondocks. It’s a 30-plus-minute drive to any commercial hub, and most offices close before I can log out of work.

Ultimately, I found an old-school hyper-local solution on a rack of business cards at our hamlet’s farmstand. One of them had a woman’s name, phone number, and “sewing and alterations.” She had no online presence whatsoever, but I called her up and got one of the best customer service experiences of my life.

She came to my house on a Friday, looked at my mechanic suit (and an array of other ripped clothing items I trotted out), gave me prices on everything, and told me she’d be back Monday with all my items fixed. Sure enough, this week began, and she appeared with my laundry looking spectacular.

“It doesn’t need to be pretty, does it,” she’d asked when I first showed her the damage. No, I was not concerned about the aesthetics of the butt of my garagewear. However, I think her stitches actually do look quite pretty! I gave her $40 all-up for a bunch of random repairs, all of which look great. But the suit-butt repair was $15. Well worth it for the quality of work she did—it’s properly stitched with a patch backing and I have no doubt it’ll hold up as well as the rest of the garment.

Could it have been done cheaper? Of course—if I’d had the sewing machine and skills to use it. I paid for the years of experience, not the few minutes it might have taken her to run the stitch. And I was happy to do it because my cash went right back into the community instead of Jeff Bezos’ coffers.

All this to say: Don’t be too quick to dismiss your aging items or older ways of doing business. Next time you break or rip something, before shipping in a cheap replacement from China, look around locally and you might be able to get a repair even cheaper. Can’t be doorstep service, either.

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