In Neal Stephenson’s novel Reamde, which I don’t really like very much, I don’t really like him very much for that matter, he remarks upon a subclass of people in Seattle called Cerulean Collars. They were affluent craftspeople who moved to the Seattle area to sell handmade value-added goods to other rich white people, and when the economy tanked they found that they actually had to do blue collar jobs that they only pretented before. Hence the name. 

A similar thing has happened with my passion for repairing clothes. 

It began as upgrading, I can recall the specific piece: I wanted to add some designs from a beloved tenugui I bought in Tokyo to the various panels of an old leather jacket. I elarned to sew in order to do that. I’ve still got the jacket with that patch, it has skulls and flowers and bottles on it. 

After that I started to add patches to my hoodies and various other things. I even tried stitching bits of paper to some clothes, a thing inspired by an absolute mad man in Django Unchained. 

It’s always been convenient to be able to repair my own clothes. I get more wear out of them, obviously. But now it’s not...necessary exactly but...if I didn’t have the ability already I might be passionately interested in learning it simply for the frugality of the affair. 

The idea of spending money on clothes right now seems insane. It’s a win win that I find repaired clothes to be more interesting, but I also don’t think I can afford fresh clothes at the moment. Something about the greed of our culture, which is to say the greed in me, makes this easy situation feel bitter. 

It was all well and good when I was choosing to repair my clothes but now that I have to I don’t want to! That’s not true, I’m perfectly happy to be repairing my clothes, but I will say, it does have a somewhat more bitter taste to it now.