SFF: ATX Mending Lab
Austin, Texas – September 20, 2025
Commissioned by the Downtown Austin Alliance Foundation · In partnership with Future Front Texas
On September 20, 2025, Slow Fashion Festival transformed 508 E 6th Street into the ATX Mending Lab—a day-long, public activation inviting Austinites to practice clothing repair and cultural repair side by side.
As part of the inaugural VIBE Downtown weekend, the Mending Lab welcomed visitors of all ages to slow down, make something by hand, and imagine new futures for what we wear and the city we share.
Throughout the day, Guests rotated through a series of interactive stations:
Repair Lounge
A drop-in hub for quick DIY mends and pro “touch-ups,” staffed by local sewists from Refugee Collective and past desigenrs, Marta Elena Cortez-Neavel (FutureKind Studio / Abilitee Inc., CEO, Founder) and Janette Lucio (Designer, Honey Fatale). Visitors learned simple stitches, practiced on lean mending kits, or entrusted trickier repairs to professionals while catching our rotating Stitch Spotlight demos.
DIY Upcycle Station
A dedicated table where visitors could give new life to garments using fabric paint, stamps and markers, with many supplies sourced through Austin Creative Reuse to keep the activation low-waste.
Photo-Postcard Booth
At our photobooth station guests posed for Austin Photographer and past Model Kass, sealing the event with a tangible token. Each session produced two prints - one to take home, one to add to their postcards with a garment story or a wish - creating a visual archive of the day’s repair stories.
Clothing Swap
An ongoing swap of clothing where folks could drop off pieces they were ready to pass on and immediately find something new to mend or upcycle on site.
Garment Stories & Austin Repair Wishes Postcards
At our postcard table, guests wrote about a piece of clothing that mattered to them and shared reflections on what they’d “mend” in Austin itself. These stories and wishes were displayed together, turning the space into a living room of community memory and civic imagination.
Community Quilt Station
Using upcycled fabric squares, fabric markers and thread, participants drew or wrote symbols, words, and memories tied to identity, place, and repair. Throughout the day, our team harvested these squares from a clothesline display and stitched them into a Collective Community Quilt - a growing tapestry of Austin’s many voices.
Photo By Kass via the Photobooth at ATX Mending Lab
VIBE Downtown
Grant Made Possible:
ATX Mending Lab was funded through a $6,000 VIBE Downtown commission, which allowed Slow Fashion Festival to:
Pay local creative workers, including textile artists, sewists from Refugee Collective, event leads and a staff photographer
Source sustainable materials and tools (mending kits, upcycled fabric, markers, signage, display elements)
Offer a free, high-touch, all-day activation on Old Sixth Street—no tickets, no barriers to entry
Document the event through portraits, postcards and the evolving community quilt
Through this partnership with the Downtown Austin Alliance Foundation and Future Front Texas, ATX Mending Lab brought Slow Fashion Festival’s core values—creativity, craftsmanship and conscious consumption—into the heart of downtown. Together, we turned an underutilized stretch of Old Sixth into a place of care, connection and collective imagination, one stitch and one story at a time.
