We are often told what the oldest profession is. I do not agree with the general consensus – turn to Genesis 3:7 and you find Adam and Eve sewing fig leaves together to make clothing for themselves.
Since then, people all over the world have worn clothing of some sort, and someone had to make it.
An unusually consequential craft
Sewing is easy to dismiss as humble because it is domestic and it has usually been done by women, largely unpaid and unrecorded.
But consider what it actually made possible. Fitted clothing let people live in climates they could not otherwise survive. Sails made ocean travel possible. Tents, sacks, harnesses, bindings – an enormous amount of what allowed people to move and settle depended on joining flexible material together.
The needle is one of the oldest tools we have, and among the most consequential.
What industrialisation changed
For most of history, clothing was made by hand, garment by garment. It was expensive, it was mended repeatedly, and it was handed down. People owned very few items and knew exactly how each was made.
The sewing machine and then the factory changed that completely, and within a few generations clothing went from being among a household’s most valuable possessions to something disposable.
With that went the assumption that everyone could sew. Repairing a garment used to be as ordinary as washing it.
Why the skill is coming back
Several things at once.
The cost of cheap clothing has become visible – environmentally and in how it is made – and mending is a direct response.
Fit is another. Mass-produced clothing is made for an average nobody actually is, and being able to alter something is the difference between a garment that fits and one that nearly does.
And there is the satisfaction. Making or repairing something with your hands is rewarding in a way that buying a replacement is not.
Where to start
Mending, before making. Replacing a button, closing a seam, taking up a hem – each takes minutes, saves a garment, and teaches you how clothes are constructed.
Once you have unpicked a seam and seen how a garment is put together, making one stops seeming mysterious.
Humble or powerful
Both, and the humility is part of the power. It is a craft anyone can learn, requiring a needle and thread, that has clothed every person who has ever lived.
Very few skills can claim as much.
