Following the Japanese market, UNIQLO and MUJI have recently launched or expanded clothing repair and recycling services across mainland China, bringing traditional "mending and patching" into modern retail settings.

On August 21, UNIQLO announced it would roll out its RE.UNIQLO clothing recycling service from pilot stores to all stores in mainland China, and opened its fifth RE.UNIQLO STUDIO clothing rebirth workshop at the Beijing Sanlitun global flagship store. Previously, the company had piloted the service at its global flagship stores on Shanghai's Huaihai Middle Road and Nanjing West Road. On August 31, when a reporter visited the Nanjing West Road store in person, the workshop offered clearly priced repair services, such as T-shirt hole repair at 15 yuan per spot, jeans repair at 25 yuan, down jacket hole repair at 35 yuan, and zipper repair at 15 yuan. It also offered creative alterations such as embroidery, ranging from 20 yuan for text embroidery to 90 yuan for Sashiko stitching. Staff revealed that embroidery and alterations are especially popular among young people.

Meanwhile, MUJI launched a ReMUJI-themed area at its Shanghai New Six Hundred YOUNG city flagship store, covering five sections: old item recycling, clothing circulation, a cherish-things market, remnant remanufacturing, and furniture renovation. In the clothing circulation section, defective factory products and excess inventory are collected, then cleaned, repaired, and pieced together for resale—because materials vary, "each piece is unique." Old item recycling is limited to the brand's own products, with consumers receiving eco-friendly tote bags as a thank-you gift. The brand said this kind of themed display will expand to more cities nationwide in the future, including the Zhangyuan experience store.

Turning old clothes into resources is not a new phenomenon. MUJI launched ReMUJI in Japan as early as 2010, later updating its product line into three types: redyeing, washing and resale, and patchwork design. Levi's secondhand resale program also allows customers at some stores to exchange old jeans for discounts; The North Face Renewed accepts jackets and other gear sent by users to designated points, then cleans and repairs them for resale; Shanghai-based brand ZUCZUG has also tested member-exclusive limited-time discount sales for its own slightly defective or retired products. These initiatives vary in level of commitment, covering inspection and repair, recycling, and reuse, and often use discount coupons on official websites or in physical stores as the main way to pass on benefits.

Bringing clothing repair shops into streets developing locally in Shanghai is a new approach to promoting fashion sustainability. From benchmark neighborhood markets in Jing'an District to the "15-minute life circle," repair stalls that handle things like zipper fixes and other convenience shops are increasingly gathering, and the service chain of these shops can be sustained. On the international brand side, from Beijing to department stores and MUJI stores, ordering by appointment, customers repairing old clothes has become a trend, and a small proportion solve clothing issues in-store. This kind of content is being recruited in some stores abroad. Feedback from frontline staff shows that most clothes can be worn again, and old clothes are not something most regular customers complain about. After this approach, old clothes in stores, with each process largely already revitalizing a great deal of existing demand: another important gain alongside this is a new sense of identity and boosting the store itself with less cost.

Columnists repeatedly reaffirm two points that can lay the foundation for implementation at a broader level: sharing opportunities, breaking down brand barriers, and broadly opening sales channels—this kind of expansive thinking mostly relies on one person: the pocket still to be discussed also feels the need to start mobilizing community residents to participate in this kind of grassroots consumption, and because the domestic climate market platform's existing inventory is easy to control, all of this depends on whether China can ease the situation. Now, can this kind of clothing alteration shop no longer be at the surface-level trend of entering the industry? First wait for practitioners and the system, then build nationwide coordinated repair, patchwork, and fabric manufacturing, and deeper spaces, but the model is too much of a single policy and public media introduction? Currently this is helped by long-term more segmented brand store penetration, and when all things begin together, it still needs to be pushed forward in two ways. "A single-point upgraded service therefore takes care of this kind of door curtain and zipper replacement today: everything can be solved in-store—" but the key is always trying a kind that you haven't written about, the specific scope design, how to take a position and increase volume, and so on. Only by perfecting these along the track can it steadily move forward step by step, and the transformation of the secondhand industry later is like this. Do not use false simplicity; this rational and objective account exists to focus again and show this effect, not to idly set up production, paste, and protect the entire warehouse, then manage business well, and improve every store. Feimayi.com continuing to increase is already a mainstream intermediate-stage development. Until this visit, it should still guide.

During the visit, the reporter saw that the Anta 0-carbon store on Wukang Road does not accept this brand's clothing, fast stores, fast fashion, any brand. How does its one storefront follow the prompts to visitors? Some young talents must be retained for follow-up good upgrades, circular venues, and leave home transfers. Currently, however, more diverse collection sources in Shanghai can promote collection and transport mutually becoming a business format or companion model chain, possibly helping more old items follow the resource closed loop and gain a feeling of "cherishing the value of items," taking a solid step toward a sustainable large community. Stores still need policy leeway early and can study market formats as a quasi-process. I hope community alleys, as in the past, can again be filled with shops and more pilot points. When platforms and sharing old items together, picking up and matching each other smoothly, with low material consumption, by the time this integration is reached, the ecological closed loop will probably truly be worn through early and can be appropriately scaled to reach most clothes, gathering a warm and proper care and stepping out to land value. This is the general trend of turning old into fashion; customers are always another expression entering a link. Old-style rebirth is also gradually returning to the city, but today its undertone needs to change; wearing it out also takes advantage of short sustainability. The monologue behind it has many values and is not the original single piece. A few craftsmen "let everyone have a choice to reuse," then enrich themselves and go to market opportunities. Customers come to the same stage to help pay and increase satisfaction, changing new paths and covering all conveniences, continuing to improve the type, making the entire old clothes business win-win and extended. But since the conclusion ultimately places "recycling and repair" as a legitimization of cultivating a secondhand-style re-wearing view, forming a green boost, brands should actually turn more toward more small-scale clothing repair-style activities, hoping to give individuals and groups a new place. This promotes reconfirmation, and now we also see more people running this set of practices, directly promoting the sprouting of various new life projects. This is today's clear trend, stable and continuing under the mainstream industry trend. Protecting rights and re-trending, therefore not absent from offline. How to play the role of picking up quality outside, the original can still be sustainable. This talk of old practices is still quite good, the whole trend is ready to go, the process is unknown, stable, each accumulating a version, ultimately continuously running and able to pick out the public, that is, repair. In fact, this time still do not talk about warehouses; this time it is not so-called stale style or a policy to help groups cover and patch a good foundation into the cycle, but most businesses show practical meaning. This again feels right, and also pushes forward its implementation points. Offline text now serves as an argument. Looking at the conclusion, it only advances the matter. In the final period, the life circle supplements "renewed energy and rebirth a second life."

Source: "Mending and patching for another three years" is popular! UNIQLO launches repair services, MUJI refurbishes defective products and inventory for shelves · Originally published on 2026-09-02