A 50-year-old bathrobe that once belonged to a customer’s grandfather, a leather jacket with a broken zip, trainers with a loose sole: at Repair Rebels in Düsseldorf, they repair clothes, shoes, and bags, and bookings happen online. Dr Monika Hauck founded the platform in 2022, and the team is based in Düsseldorf-Carlstadt. The idea is simple to explain and still rare in practice: booking a repair should be as easy as ordering something new from an online shop. On the website, you choose the item type and the repair it needs, add it to the basket, and pay online. From there, the team handles the rest, from collection to returning the finished piece.
Monika Hauck grew up in Lithuania, where she learned to mend clothes in school. In Düsseldorf, she earned a PhD in open and collaborative innovation, ran the Entrepreneurship Centre at WHU, and in 2017 became a city ambassador who brought the Fashion Revolution movement to the city. Along the way, she noticed a gap. Many people say they would have things repaired, yet few ever walk into an alterations shop. At the same time, Düsseldorf has many experienced craftspeople who are hard to find online and rarely reach younger customers. Starting yet another fashion label was never the plan. Instead, she built a digital bridge between people with damaged favourite pieces and the professionals who can bring them back into shape.
Through the platform, you can book repairs, alterations, and care for textiles, shoes, bags, and accessories like belts. Jobs range from children’s trousers and down jackets to luxury handbags: scuffed corners, torn handles and dull leather are restored until the bags look as good as new. Repair Rebels does not do the work in-house: it works with a network of independent tailors and cobblers in the region, whom the team calls its Repair Heroes. The team checks every request individually and passes it on to the right workshop. Prices depend on the work involved, because an hour of skilled handwork in Germany has its price, and Monika Hauck openly positions Repair Rebels as a premium service with personal advice. Their own analysis showed that around 40 per cent of users are men and about 30 per cent had never had anything repaired before. In 2023, Repair Rebels won the German Federal Ecodesign Award in the service category, and the same year the team was named one of Germany’s Cultural and Creative Pilots. Repair Rebels also works with brands: Wildling Shoes, for example, offers its customers a dedicated repair service for its shoes through the platform. Other companies that want to offer repairs to their customers can set up a similar partnership.
Looking for an alterations tailor or a cobbler in Düsseldorf but never make it during opening hours? With Repair Rebels, you can book anytime. In Düsseldorf and Cologne, the company’s own courier service collects your items from your door and brings them back repaired. From anywhere else in Germany, you simply send them by post. There is no shop window to walk past, because the whole service runs online. That makes Repair Rebels less a store than a go-between for you and skilled hands: book digitally, get it done by hand. If you want to give someone a treat, you can also buy a repair gift voucher, perhaps for those favourite jeans that have been waiting in the wardrobe for a new seam.
