DenimTherapy.com: It's A Christmas Miracle!

I've had--and LOVED--my Earnest Sewn denim miniskirt for at least six years, so it was a very sad day when I realized that it had developed an ill-placed hole right on the butt. When it was smaller than the width of a pencil, I tried to hide it by wearing tights. As it grew, my options polarized: retire it or risk indecent exposure. Begrudgingly, I accepted the former. My tailor deemed it a lost cause, telling me any patch job would ruin it. And just when I was about to lose all hope, I found out about DenimTherapy.com.

It's a web-based service that repairs battered denim, and it's genius as far as I'm concerned. Here's how it works: you fill out this form on their website, ship them your jeans, they give you an estimate to approve, and two weeks later you get a package in the mail with your denim good as new.

They also have a drop-off location for those in New York City, which I opted for because, to be honest, I was skeptical. I went to their office in the outskirts of Chinatown, where a nice guy named Gordon sat behind a desk surrounded by a sea of jeans and very patiently explained their process. They send jeans out to one of their local seamstresses, who assess each case as it comes in, but generally use both a very fine patch and reweaving technique to repair whatever hole or rip you've got going on (according to Gordon, nine times out of ten they're fixing jeans that have torn between the legs). The key is they have about one hundred different colors of thread on-hand, and they combine as many shades as it takes to get a perfect match with the rest of your denim.

My skirt arrived on my doorstep yesterday in flawless condition and I'm floored by the workmanship. The hole has magically disappeared, and you'd never know it was there in the first place. This thread-matching business is seriously an art. I still can't get over the results. The cost is $7/inch and right now, all orders placed through the end of the year get free return shipping (which usually costs $12).