In May, Australia was revealed to have overtaken the US as the world’s biggest fashion consumers! Australians purchase an average of 56 new clothing items a year, more than the US (53), the UK (33 items) and China (30). If this is as horrifying for you as it was for me, then this blog post is for you! In it you'll find books on how to mend the clothing you already own, upcycle those thriftshop finds, sew your own wardrobe or even just learn about the future of fashion!

Sustainable Wardrobe by Sophie Benson

Statistics show that how we are consuming, maintaining and discarding our clothing is having a devastating effect on the planet. There are problems with every part of the cycle and they won't be fixed overnight. So what can we actually do to make a difference? The answer is that if we all take small steps to improve our habits, it would collectively result in a big change, and this book teaches us exactly how to do this!

Sophie Benson, a journalist specialising in sustainable fashion, will guide you through – breaking down the issues and explaining how we can mitigate them at home: from the clothes we purchase, to the way we care for them, to how we dispose of them. With easy tutorials to follow (how to read a label and have a conscious closet clear out, upcycling hacks, how to darn socks and how to care for your jeans), Sophie will show you that small changes in habit can result in a more sustainable, eco-friendly wardrobe without breaking the bank.

Mending Life by Nina Montenegro and Sonya Montenegro

Learn the art of visible mending – a joyful, meditative, and restorative practice, to repair the clothes and belongings you love!

Mending Life, a beautiful modern sewing and mending guide with vibrant, full-colour illustrations woven throughout, encourages us to break free from the fast fashion industry by repairing our clothes rather than discarding them. Along with DIY and how-to illustrations and tutorials, you'll find heartfelt stories by authors Nina and Sonya Montenegro (creators of the popular @TheFarWoods) that encourage you to change your consumption habits, celebrate a sustainable, intentional lifestyle, demonstrate mending as a powerful act that not only strengthens the object we are repairing, but ourselves as well.

The Art of Repair by Molly Martin

For Molly Martin, it all started with a pair of socks. Her favourite pair. When the heels became threadbare, her mother got out her darning mushroom and showed her how to reinforce the thinning stitches and bring them back to life. She has been stitching and darning ever since.

In The Art of Repair, Molly explores the humble origins of repair and how the act of mending a cherished item carefully by hand offers not just a practical solution, but nourishment for the soul. Using her own beautiful illustrations, she guides us through the basics of the craft – from piecing and patching to the ancient Japanese art of Sashiko.

This book will stay with you long after you put down your needle and thread. It offers an antidote to our increasingly disposable lifestyle, encouraging us to reconnect not just with the everyday objects in our environment but also with ourselves.

Mending Matters by Katrina Rodabaugh

Mending Matters explores sewing on two levels. First, it includes more than 20 hands-on projects that showcase current trends in visible mending that are edgy, modern, and bold, but draw on traditional stitching. It does all this through just four very simple mending techniques: exterior patches, interior patches, slow stitches, darning, and weaving.

In addition, the book addresses the way mending leads to a more mindful relationship to fashion and to overall wellbeing. In essays that accompany each how-to chapter, Katrina Rodabaugh explores mending as a metaphor for appreciating our own naturally flawed selves, and she examines the ways in which mending teaches us new skills, self-reliance, and confidence, all gained from making things with our own hands.

The Re:Fashion Wardrobe by Portia Lawrie

Reuse and sew a sustainable capsule wardrobe that is tailored to you and with it, break the cycle of throw-away fashion – with Portia Lawrie, leader of fashion reuse pioneers, the Refashioners.

Beginning with advice on how to source and analyze existing clothes, founder of The Refashioners movement and sewing designer Portia Lawrie will then take you step by step through a collection of inspirational garments that she has reworked to show you just how easy it is to refresh and renew any piece of clothing you come across.

In every project, accompanied by stage-by-stage photographs and invaluable tips, see how you can adapt and cut away at tops, trousers, dresses and more to build a stylish, modern capsule wardrobe that you can wear throughout the year.

Zero Waste Fashion Design by Timo Rissanen and Holly McQuillan

Zero Waste Fashion Design combines practical examples, flat patterns and more than 20 exercises to help you incorporate this sustainable technique into your portfolio. There are also beautifully illustrated interviews with innovative designers, including Richard Lindgvist, Mary Beth Bentaha and Daniel Desanto, to show how sustainable practice continues to evolve within industry.

Industry pioneers, Timo Rissanen and Holly McQuillan, offer flexible strategies and easy-to-master zero waste techniques to help you develop your own cutting-edge fashion designs. This updated edition includes new content on integrating 3D design into a zero waste process, additional coverage of the historical context of zero waste around the world, and expands on the related technique of subtraction cutting to make this the ultimate practical guide to sustainable fashion design.

Mending with Boro: Japanese Running Stitch and Patching Techniques by Harumi Horiuchi

One simple stitch can bring new life to hundreds of your favourite things!

Boro is the Japanese straight stitch used to repair and reinforce fabrics that is the basis for Sashiko. It is a favorite among visible mending enthusiasts because of its simplicity and because it adds an intriguing textural element to favorite garments and home furnishings.

In this new book, Sashiko expert Harumi Horiuchi shares her ideas for using Boro to patch holes and tears, reinforce worn areas, and add fresh details to garments. Her approach is simple – the things you love are worth fixing. Rediscover your favourite items by giving them a new look and feel, while also being good to the environment!

Wear Next by Clare Press

What will you be wearing tomorrow? Will your jacket have been grown in a lab, or your jeans coloured using bacteria? Will we still have shops? What does the future of work look like for the people who make our garments?

The current fashion system is wasteful, environmentally harmful and exploitative. And, if we carry on as we do now, it could account for a quarter of global emissions by 2050. But creative thinkers are dreaming up new ways to craft our sartorial identities that don't wreck the planet.

Vogue's first sustainability editor, Clare Press, introduces us to the fascinating innovators who are redesigning fashion from the ground up and changing it in the most fundamental ways.

The Point of the Needle: Why Sewing Matters by Barbara Burman

Tens of millions of people sew for necessity or pleasure every day, yet the craft is surprisingly under-appreciated. The Point of the Needle redresses the balance: this is a book that argues for sewing's place in our lives. It celebrates not only sewing's recent resurgence but sewists' creativity, wellbeing and community.

Barbara Burman chronicles new voices of people who sew today, by hand or machine, to explore what they sew, what motivates them, what they value and why they mend things, revealing insights into sewing's more intimate stories. In our age of superfast fashion with its environmental and social injustices, this eloquent book makes a passionate case for identity, diversity, resilience and memory – what people create for themselves as they stitch and make.