Sustainable fashion advocate Andrea Cheong didn’t launch her workshops just to encourage Londoners to mend and make their own clothes; she wanted to create spaces that encourage new connections to thrive. “London can be quite a lonely place – maybe we can matchmake you with your new best friend,” she tells Broadsheet. Her Sip & Stitch events, for instance, pair wine-tasting with “approachable, comforting crafts”.
This isn’t the only reason the Singapore-born, London-raised Cheong – author of bestseller Why Don’t I Have Anything To Wear?; host of the Fashion Our Future podcast by luxury goods company Kering; and founder of The Sewn Assembly, which hosts sewing and mending workshops – feels her events are best suited to a London demographic. “London is so diverse,” she says. “What brings us all together is that everyone is trying to articulate their individualism.”
For Cheong, individuality is increasingly rooted in making style choices that align with your values. Part of her mission is to help people understand how clothing is manufactured, so they can make better-informed decisions based on quality and sustainability. Her 400,000-strong following across Tiktok and Instagram watches as the content creator enters London stores – ranging from high-street to high-end – and analyses garments off the rack, based on everything from fabrics to the quality of stitching and pricepoint. By showcasing her passion for products that are well-made and will stand the test of time, she’s organically encouraging sustainable shopping habits.
Her career didn’t start this way. Originally a mainstream fashion influencer, Cheong began to question her direction and purpose after a downturn in her mental health in 2019. “I really asked myself how I could reconcile wanting to work in fashion and finding meaning [in my vocation],” she says. Realising something was missing in the online space, the content creator “started educating [herself] on sustainability and fashion, and thinking critically about it”. Her commitment to conscious fashion started with a fascination with quality and fabrics – and that’s still her niche to this day.
She’s also passionate about encouraging a circular mindset: what can be mended and what could be upcycled? At her Mindful Mending Club events at the Hart hotel in Shoreditch, attendees bring an item of clothing to restore, guided by Cheong and a couple of bespoke tailors. The price of entry is just £7 – something the content creator vows never to change. “I have no intention to raise the cost, because I really don’t like this narrative that sustainable fashion is expensive,” she says.
Her latest workshop is Self-Made Studios, where she teaches participants to make their own clothes – even if they’ve never used a sewing machine before. Each participant finishes a garment within the allotted time. “I really believe that when people know how things are made, not only are they valuing things more, but they have the tools to make their clothes last longer,” she says.
By the end of her events, she hopes participants have learnt three key things: to read a care label (and avoid synthetics), to sew, and to “understand how to make clothes serve us, not the other way around”. Her longer-term objectives could include expanding beyond the capital, but she prefers not to get too far ahead of herself.
“What I really want is for all this to be beyond me. Right now it’s my baby and I am the one raising it, but I hope one day it becomes an adult and goes beyond me.”
Find out more about Andrea Cheong’s events via her website and Instagram.
