M&S is having a busy end to the summer. Having just announced it’s to open a standalone fashion store in the UK, the high street retail giant has also launched a dedicated clothing repair service.

Powered by UK-based fashion-tech clothing repair and alterations expert Sojo, M&S customers can book a repair service through a new online hub ‘M&S Repaired by Sojo’. It comes as M&S also unveils a new circularity identity — Plan A -‘Another life’ — across stores, website and app, bringing together all the retailer’s circularity services into one place.

Customers will be able to select and book from a range of bespoke repair services for M&S-purchased clothing — from zip replacements to invisible knitwear mending via one simple online form. Repairs start from just £5, and clothing can be sent, repaired by Sojo’s in-house repair team, and returned directly to the customer’s doorstep within seven to 10 days. 

The partnership is supported by the £1 million M&S Plan A Accelerator Fund as the retailer “commits to investing in driving the circular economy”.

The launch is underpinned by M&S’s own insight released earlier this year that revealed only 10% of the population is confident enough to repair clothing themselves and 60% of consumers are looking for retailers to offer more services which support them to lower their carbon footprint.

Richard Price, Managing Director of Clothing & Home at M&S, said: “Exceptional quality products are at the heart of everything we do, and we want to ensure that all our clothes are too good to waste. Through the launch of our repair service, we’re making it even easier for customers to give their clothes Another Life, whether they are using our new repair service or long-standing clothes recycling scheme.”

Josephine Philips, founder & CEO of Sojo, added: “It has always been a core mission of ours… to make repairing clothes mainstream and to extend the life of as many garments as possible. M&S [choosing] to launch a repair service with us [is] an incredibly big step towards that mission. As a brand that has remained a firm constant in almost every household and wardrobe in Britain, this partnership will truly bring easy, accessible and convenient repairs to the masses.”