Value Village ／ Clothing
This answer is a draft. It stays unpublished until legal review and source verification are complete.
In parts of the world, "a button came off, so throw it away" has become a normal choice. Japan has kept a culture of mending: home economics is compulsory, so everyone learns to hand-sew, and 100-yen shops stock a full range of repair supplies. This article covers the basic repairs and where to hand over to a professional.
| Problem | Method | Tools | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Button came off | Use doubled thread, pass through 4–5 times in an × or = pattern, then wind thread round the base to make a "shank" (room for the thickness of the fabric) | Needle, thread (button thread or hand-sewing thread), a toothpick (sets the shank height) | 5 min |
| Hem came down (blind hem stitch, まつり縫い) | Catch tiny stitches on the inside so the thread hardly shows on the outside. Or use iron-on hemming tape (裾上げテープ, suso-age tēpu) | Needle and thread, or tape and an iron | 15–30 min |
| Seam coming apart | Backstitch along the original seam line | Needle and thread | 10 min |
| Small hole or moth hole (knitwear) | Close it from the back with matching or near-matching yarn. Darning (weaving thread across the hole) has become popular in recent years | Needle, yarn, a darning mushroom (or a light bulb) | 20–40 min |
| Hole (trouser knee, elbow) | Iron-on repair patch (補修布, hoshū-nuno) from the back, or sew on a patch | Repair patch, iron | 10 min |
| Frayed thread end | Fray-stop liquid (ほつれ止め液, hotsure-dome eki) | Liquid | 1 min |
| Zip runs stiffly | Rub candle wax or a zip lubricant on the teeth | — | 1 min |
Zip replacement, adjusting the waist or shoulder width, leather and fur, large tears, big holes in knitwear, suit hems and sleeves — a repair shop (common in stations and shopping centres) charges a few hundred to a few thousand yen. Free or discounted hemming at the shop where you bought the item is normal.
[Verify] Check the home-economics content against the Ministry of Education (MEXT) curriculum guidelines. The repair methods are the standard procedures in home-economics teaching materials and the textile industry.
Sewing on a button and blind-hemming are jobs primary-school children learn. Needle, thread, ten minutes. Watch one video and you can do it first time.
Hemming tape, repair patches and fray-stop liquid need only an iron or a dab of liquid. The 100-yen shop has them all.
Without a "shank" (a short column of thread), the button sits flat against the fabric, is hard to fasten and the thread soon breaks. Sew with a toothpick under the button, then wind the thread round the base.
Rough guide: hemming ¥500–1,500, a button ¥200–500, zip replacement ¥2,000–5,000. Judged against the price of the garment and how many more years you will wear it, most repairs are worth doing.
Darning (weaving thread across the hole) can be invisible, or done in coloured thread as decoration, and is spreading in Japan too. A small moth hole takes 20 minutes.
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https://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/shotou/new-cs/
https://www.env.go.jp/policy/sustainable_fashion/
https://www.qtec.or.jp/
⚠️ Editorial note: the source URLs above were identified by search. Our working environment cannot reach go.jp domains, so the contents have not been checked against the text. Verify every source before publication and record who checked it and when.
What we share here are ideas and everyday practices passed down among people living in Japan, together with general information drawn from public sources. They are not official recommendations, and they are not professional instruction. Practices vary between households and regions.
This is general information. Results vary from person to person and depend on your own conditions and surroundings.
Please decide for yourself, using your own judgement, whether any of this suits your situation. We cannot accept responsibility for any damage, loss or injury arising from following this article.
Follow the care label and the maker's instructions for any garment, shoe or bag. For expensive or sentimental items, ask a specialist cleaner or repairer.
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