A little of the history of British Invisible Mending Service.
Over seventy years of experience and a reputation for excellence
British Invisible Mending Service Ltd is without doubt the oldest established invisible mending company within the UK, specialising in the repairs of both woven and knitted items of clothing. Our retail shop has occupied the same premises at 32 Thayer Street for some 30 years, previously located only a few hundred yards away at 1 Hinde Street, London, W1.
Having been in the same family ownership since 1946 and established probably 30 years prior to that, British Invisible Mending Service can boast nearly a century’s worth of experience in caring for and exquisitely repairing and altering garments that might otherwise have been rendered un-wearable.
The owners’ family, having been involved in the tailoring trade in the Marylebone area in London’s West End since the 1800’s, still retain ‘an old fashioned’ approach in terms of customer service and the emphasis on quality of workmanship. This is probably why the business still exists today in what is certainly a more ‘throw away’ society. British Invisible Mending Service is almost certainly one of the oldest established businesses in the area.
Our highly skilled and extremely talented invisible menders and tailors have in the main, worked within our business for in excess of 20 years and a couple of our staff members have been with us for more than 40, during which time many changes have been seen in production methods of both the materials and the manufacturing processes used within the clothing trade; not to mention regular changes in fashion. Their on-going challenge has been to master repairing some of the finer fabrics that are becoming more commonplace in peoples wardrobes.
The invisible mending process which is entirely completed by hand, painstakingly weaving individual threads to reconstruct damaged areas on an item of clothing, is made far more difficult when some of these threads are not much thicker than human hair, yet the results achieved get great acclaim from many of the clients who either visit our retail shop or post items to us from all around the world.
Over the years, many notable individuals as well as those involved in the film and music industry have availed themselves of our services to repair favourite items of clothing which may have been damaged by moth, cigarette burns or in Lord Sugar’s case, tearing on an item of furniture.
Many of London’s top tailors, fashion houses and well known department stores are regular visitors to our London premises, bringing clients clothing to us for repair following an accident.
British Invisible mending Service has been widely featured in many magazines, journals and newspapers; Vogue, Harpers & Queens, Good Housekeeping, Timeout, The Evening Standard, The Sunday Times, The Telegraph and The Independent, just to name a few, helping to keep this ‘invisible’ mending business ‘visible’.
New suit trousers ruined by BBC desk. Going to British invisible mender co in london. Bill to BBC http://t.co/iQVAiMts
— Lord Sugar (@Lord_Sugar) October 5, 2011
Over the years we have been called upon many times to effect some unusual repairs.
For instance we were once asked to repair a favourite hunting cap which had been chewed in several places by a pet dog and even though the cost of the repair far outweighed the value of the cap the customer was more than willing to pay and was highly delighted with the result.
Probably, one of the most memorable garments that we have had the privilege of repairing, was the jacket worn by "Compo" in the series The Last of the Summer Wine. In this instance we were not required to fully restore the jacket but only carry out specific repairs, the reason for this being that the scruffy condition of the jacket had become synonymous with the character in the series.