Repair Remix & Rewear Your Clothes 💚
So that you can take control of your consumption / develop a unique and sustainable personal style / participate in a movement to change the fashion system
If you’re in NYC and have holes in your sweaters - join me (Next Season) and Old Flame Mending for a Darning Workshop, where you’ll learn how to repair your own clothes! Sunday March 23 @ TALEA Cobble Hill, BK.
The biggest challenge I faced while working at an early-stage aka pre- ‘product market fit’ startup was the lack of a clear mission (purpose for being) & vision (picture of a successful future). It wasn’t obvious at first, because we technically had mission & vision statements. But it quickly became clear that our written statements ≠ recognizable (let alone meaningful) purpose or vision. This existential problem infected everything - our ability to gain traction, our internal working & decision-making, and our team’s morale. I’ve met so many fellow startup (& non startup!) people that have experienced the same and can relate to this frustration.
During the last ~18 months, ever since I started down this path of exploring & testing approaches to circular fashion, I’ve intermittently jotted down thoughts about the intention and ‘bigger picture’ of my endeavors. I’ve written a bit about personal purpose and motivation shaping my investigation of this space too. But ultimately it took me applying to a grant to force writing formal mission and vision statements for my upcycled knitwear brand Next Season. As a team of one, this was the first time I’ve had to communicate these ideas to someone outside of myself. It was / is anxiety-inducing to put these big declarations out there to be judged…!
In my initial draft for this post, I jumped right to end - to the mission & what it means for the brand & newsletter etc. going forwards. But because I view this newsletter as a window into everything I’m learning while starting a circular fashion business, I thought that sharing a bit about my informal process to get clear on Next Season’s mission & vision might also be helpful and interesting to everyone reading along. What helped me write mission & vision statements:
I put myself into a customer-centric mindset
Last year I read a book called Building a Storybrand, which encourages brands, marketers (independent consultants, whoever) to stop centering their business as the hero of the story (guilty!) and instead center their customers. I recently picked it back up, because I find that its framing helps me focus on the big picture outcomes for my customers (I.e. what will help them survive & thrive) vs the success of my business.
I looked for model examples to learn from
I racked my brain to think of businesses that I’m familiar with that I hold in high regard - who inspires me? My mind went to Zingerman’s - a gourmet food business group based in my hometown, Ann Arbor, MI. Zingerman’s has been around for over 40 years, and is known for the high quality of its food and its dedication to great customer service. For the uninitiated, this podcast / interview delves into their history & unconventional ‘community of businesses’ structure. One of their businesses (ZingTrain) offers business training & leadership development, and they have a lot of information online about their own mission & vision and the process they took to define it. This aspirational example was helpful to reference as I worked on writing my own mission & vision statements.
I took my time (or rather, went back & considered / incorporated past thinking)
The majority of my time is spent working ‘in’ the business (making the product & selling the product) versus ‘on’ the business (formulating a definitive mission & future vision) - as it should be! But while the exercise of applying for a grant was time-bound (I spent a few days on it), I had the benefit of ~a years worth of thinking, captured across multiple Notion note pages to draw from. Even my earliest notes from fall 2023(!) had a germ of the vision statement I just put to paper.
Ultimately I defined the following mission for Next Season, to:
Create a culture of responsible consumption & production, by empowering people to repair remix & rewear their clothes.
The vision paints a more detailed picture of the future:
It’s 2030, and Next Season is an independent knitwear brand and a remanufacturing hub located here in NYC. We’re a pillar of the local circular and sustainable fashion community, selling upcycled clothes that have been manufactured in-house and offering knitwear remanufacturing services to consumers and to fashion brands. Education and community are core to our business; we collaboratively create, aggregate, and share educational content and resources on methods of clothing repair, care & cleaning, rewear, and remanufacturing.
These statements aren’t really a change in direction from how I’ve been thinking about the business to date, but I can already feel how writing the words down has influenced and clarified the roadmap. And I recognize these are still early days in the life of this startup - it’s of course possible that this vision will change as I uncover new insights (and / or as the team grows).
Most importantly, I now have a mantra, ‘how can I empower people to repair remix & rewear their clothes,’ so that they can take control of their consumption / develop a unique and sustainable personal style / participate in a movement to change the fashion system?
And with that context, I can jump to the conclusion: what does this mean for the brand & newsletter going forwards?
Here are some of the projects in my pipeline / in progress…
Workshops - in addition to the Next Season workshops I’ve started hosting, I plan to share a weekly-ish roundup of similar / relevant events and workshops here in NYC
Resource Library - I’ve started building out a reference library for all things repairing remixing & rewearing clothes. Think recommendations for my go-to tailors and cobblers in NYC, how to clean & care for your knits, etc. I’ll start sharing these resources via newsletter, and on the Next Season website & social channels.
And because no one person could ever ‘cover it all’ on these topics of repair remix & rewear, I’m excited to also aggregate and feature my favorite resources & guides written by others on these topics as well - we’re all in it together.
Ultimately, culture change is a collective effort - I’ve so enjoyed meeting & making new friends that are also putting their energy into this space, and I look forward to finding more ways for us to come together and encourage each other to make the most out of the clothes we already own.
⭐ If you’re also working on cultivating repair, remix, and rewear, I’d LOVE to collaborate - my email is anne@nextseason.nyc ⭐
#MendMarch Recs & Events
Jumping right into to some mending recs & events - if you’re interested in DIY mending, I recommend you check out
’s newsletter and ’s newsletter , both of which are fantastic resources for mending stories and instruction! Both also recently posted about upcoming mending events here in NYC:
I love that you are using this as a space to write about your own process and not just the end results - and thanks for the mention :)
Thanks for the shoutout! ❤️ Also, I love the chunky red font in your graphic