At a workshop run by Levi's, Nicholas (r) says he prefers mending not to show, while Bianca (centre) says people still see it as a sign of poverty

If Alice Brown is browsing in second-hand shops and finds a jumper with a hole, that won't stop her buying it.

"I see it as challenge," says the 27-year-old forest ranger from Lincolnshire.

She is a champion of the growing fashion for eye-catching repairs.

Over the last year she has developed her own unique style, needle-felting cute animals and insects to cover moth holes, stains and other imperfections, winning her a huge following online.

"The natural place for decoration is in the centre at the front. If the hole is under the arm or on the shoulder, it forces you to think about the design," she says.

Often dubbed "visible mending" the trend is spreading from hobby crafters and community workshops, even drawing in fast-fashion brands and reaching the designer catwalks this year.

At one Saturday morning workshop in Brighton, Jayne Eagle shows her students how to attach a patch of fabric behind a tear so the cat-face design peeps through.

Then she instructs them in stitching techniques inspired by the traditional Japanese methods Boro and Sashiko. Instead of matching the thread colour to the garment, they make the mend highly decorative using geometric patterns in large white stitching.

She also offers classes in darning using contrasting vibrant colours that celebrate, rather than disguise, the repair.

Jayne Eagle sees repair as an "act of rebellion" against fast fashion

One student, Nicola, has already used her newfound skills to stitch over sunscreen marks on a T-shirt "making a feature of it" and is now delighted that people "stop seeing the stains and just see the decoration".

Another student, Lisa, says her mother's generation would never have wanted the mends to show. "Now part of it is being proud of what you've done," she says.

Lisa bought a second-hand jacket online, but snipped the fabric with the scissors when she was opening the package. She managed to patch it in a way that "looks intentional".

"I was actually pointing it out to people," she laughs.

Lisa says she's so proud of her mends she wants people to notice them

In the past mending was primarily about saving money, by wearing clothes for longer, rather than buying new. But visible mending is about celebrating that choice.

The trend took off about six years ago, Jayne says, and has boomed since.

An era of "throwaway" fast fashion from the 1980s onwards undermined the tradition of looking after and mending your clothes and people lost the skills, she says.

The revival of interest feels to her like a backlash against overproduction in the fashion industry and the damage it causes: the pollution, carbon emissions, water use, and poor labour conditions.

Alice Brown uses felt animals to cover holes and stains on her clothes

So perhaps it is surprising just how popular mended style is proving among retailers, with brands from Ralph Lauren to ultra-fast-fashion firm Shein currently selling stitched and patched garments, albeit in both of those cases brand new off the peg.

Other High Street chains are adopting a more authentic approach, offering in-house repairs and workshops.

"We want to give customers practical ways to extend the life of the clothes they already love, rather than simply replacing them," says Uniqlo's head of sustainability, Maria Ledous.

Uniqlo offers decorative mending using Sashiko techniques, in keeping with the brand's Japanese heritage

Primark, often seen as a fast-fashion retailer due to its lower prices, has also joined the trend.

"We don't think that affordability and durability should be opposites," says Vicki Swain, the brand's longevity lead.

Outdoor brand Finisterre says around a fifth of the mends it provides for customers are designed to be eye-catching, while premium artisan clothing store Toast says around a third of customers go for that option.

Part of the "magic" is that customers can bring in a garment and "choose what they'd like it to become next", says Toast chief executive Suzie de Rohan Willner.

Toast has a team of 14 in-house "repair artists" providing a range of creative mends

Toast's repair services are free, but off-the-peg "renewed" pieces fetch higher prices than the originals to reflect their unique character.

Levi's, which boasts probably the longest tradition of being fixed up by its fans using anything from rhinestones to fringed cuffs, is rolling out a workshop programme this year.

The firm says its research shows younger customers in particular want to repair more but don't know how.

For now, Levi's' workshops focus on traditional mending skills, such as sewing on a button and hemming, rather than visible mends, and at a recent launch event in London, that seemed to be what its Gen Z participants were looking for.

"I'm from East London. If you have holes in your clothes people are like 'Ha ha! You're poor!'," says 16-year-old school student Bianca.

Theo, 19, says he'd rather learn how to mend without it showing.

"I would want [the jeans] to look how I originally bought them," he says.

He has a side hustle selling clothes at car boot sales and thinks traditional repair skills would make it more lucrative.

His friend Nicholas, also 19, says most people want to look "fresh".

"No-one wants to look like they came out of a dumpster," he says.

Still, Paul Dillinger, Levi's head of global design innovation, thinks more creative repairs will win them over as they pick up more skills.

"No-one has time for that perfect 'straight from the shop' thing. That's not cool.

"People crave agency," he says. "Mending is a demonstration of humanity: it's not a mustard stain, it's a memory of a great day in the ballpark."