As more consumers convert to raw denim, the need for denim repairs increases. Of course there’s no shortage of home repairs, but if you want your jeans repaired by a professional, the options are few and far between. Your local tailor can only do so much, and many lack the equipment strong enough to take on your denim duds.
When you do have a go-to denim repair specialist, it’s even rarer to have one with a darning machine. Aside from our list of 5 Repair Shops, options are limited.
We got a chance to review a new kid on the block, Denimrepair.com. Although it’s a newer service, the guys in charge have been in the business for decades. Eric Goldstein is a name you might have heard before. He’s one of the creators of the RRL and Polo Ralph Lauren labels as well as the founder of Jean Shop. His co-founder Bruce Gershon has been cleaning and repairing garments for over 40 years and his experience goes back three generations.
It works like other services in that they take mail-in orders. You go to their site, select the services you want, print out a confirmation, and send your jeans to them. The website is clean and easy to navigate. When you get to the ‘Purchase Repair Options’ screen, you can select as many options as you want. These include crotch repairs, hardware replacements, leg tapering, washing, dry cleaning, and more.
When I began this review, I wanted to see what their regular service was like. So, I made sure not to mention anything to Denimrepair.com that I was working for Heddels. The jeans I used for this review were my Tellason John Graham Mellor 14.75 oz. jeans which had blown out a couple of times prior. I had them repaired by a shop in San Francisco that uses the denim patch method, which you can see in the following images. Not only were they tearing through the patches, but also at the inseams. It’s a little rougher than a standard blowout, so I was curious to see how they would handle it.
I went ahead and selected the ‘Repair My Crotch’ option as well as the option for $5 shipping. I might be inept in this area, but it seemed confusing to me that there was a purchase option for shipping, though there’s another charge for ‘Shipping & Handling’ in the invoice. This definitely left me wondering how many times I was charged.
I went ahead and placed the order on August 27th but I didn’t receive the shipping label for several days. Certainly not the best first impression, though this might have been a fault on the part of FedEx. I eventually received the FedEx 2-Day shipping label on Tuesday, September 1st and sent my jeans out on Thursday, September 3rd. It arrived to Denimrepair.com on Tuesday, September 8th.
They took just 2 days to repair my jeans, but the returning shipment was, again, slower than the shipping label had said. They sent them back to me on Thursday, September 10th, but I received them on Wednesday, September 16th.
While the delays in shipping are not necessarily DenimRepair.com’s fault, it ultimately does have an effect on the customer experience. Even so, the total time for me to receive my repaired jeans was only a little over 2 weeks. More than acceptable and faster than other repair services. The real question comes down to the repairs themselves.
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