Right to Repair (Skinflint)

Skinflint approached Katie Treggiden about an event during their pop-up at the MARK Product showroom for Clerkenwell Design Week. Katie worked with Skinflint co-founder Sophie Miller to come up with the topic of restoration, mending and repair, playing into Skinflint’s USP while providing editorial value.

Katie wrote the copy for the Clerkenwell Design Week guide and secured three panellists to sit alongside Katie and Sophie’s partner Chris Miller – textiles artist Celia Pym; artist, maker and Hackney Fixers co-organiser Bridget Harvey; and Justin South, recovering addict and volunteer at Restoration Station.

Katie conducted extensive research into the topic and pre-interviewed each of the panel, resulting in a fascinating conversation that covered built-in obsolescence, design for repair, the ‘right to repair’ movement, the gender and class implications of mending, the layers of stories in a repaired object, the dangers of westerners appropriating terms like ‘wabi-sabi’ and ‘kintsugi’, conscious consumption, and repair as an act of sustainability, recovery, wellbeing and activism. The event sold-out and secured an engaged audience on the day as well as being live-streamed on Instagram for both Skinflint and MARK Product.