As AI and automation increasingly seep into both work and leisure, a cultural counterforce is growing. People are picking up crochet hooks and knitting needles and dusting off sewing machines to escape screen time and embrace a more ‘analog’ life. Nostalgic crafts are having a moment.

“This year globally we have really seen a craft movement,” says Yazmin How, head of emerging communities at TikTok UK. The hashtag #CraftTok has seen a 60% increase in videos globally over the past 12 months, according to the platform, while #SewingTok videos are up 90%. “From knitting and crochet to upcycling and pom-pom creations, [there] has been a move toward more mindful hobbies.”

Pinterest’s 2026 Hobbies Trend report also highlights crafts among trending pastimes. Searches for “thrift flip ideas” are up 610%, “sashiko ideas” have increased 1,509%, and “crochet upcycle” searches are up 523%, according to Pinterest data shared with Vogue Business.

Rather than seeing the growth of skills that allow people to make, repair and upcycle their own clothes and accessories as a threat to sales, some brands are embracing it. On October 1, Levi’s will expand its Wear Longer Project into Europe.

Launched in the US in January, the initiative is designed to educate young people to repair and reimagine their clothes through a free digital curriculum, in-classroom lessons, and community workshops that teach skills such as sewing buttons, patching holes, and repairing hems.

“Gen Z has helped make secondhand shopping, thrifting, and vintage fashion a cultural phenomenon. But we also saw a gap between that interest and the practical skills needed to keep clothes in use, with many young people lacking access to the repair knowledge that was once more commonly passed down through generations or taught in schools,” says Alexis Bechtol, director of community affairs at Levi Strauss & Co, who was the architect of the project.

“For us, encouraging people to wear and care for clothing longer is not at odds with our business. We’ve long believed there is value in creating products people want to keep, repair, pass down, and continue wearing.”

Research commissioned by Levi’s found that Gen Z were the least likely of all generational groups to know how to do basic clothing repairs, and the most lacking in the right tools and materials, yet were the most interested in learning how to repair their clothes.

While Levi’s is focusing on Gen Z, TikTok’s How says no single generation has a claim on the craft boom. “We are seeing creators of all ages embracing this trend, for example Gen Z who are leaning into all things analog and trying wholesome activities, [and] older generations who are sharing their own skills and inspiring others,” she says.

From consumers to makers

It was makers sharing their inspiration online that prompted knitwear designer Hope Macaulay to launch Hope’s Wool in 2023, a sister brand to her eponymous ready-to-wear label that sells yarn, needles, DIY kits, and knitting patterns. “There were, and still are, so many YouTube videos with millions of views where people recreate Hope Macaulay cardigans for themselves, so I knew there was a demand,” Macaulay says.

Though still the smaller of the two brands, Macaulay says Hope’s Wool sales are up 220% on last year.

Macaulay joins a growing set of brands opening up their designs to audiences who want to create their own versions at home. After Liz Pape shuttered her slow fashion brand Elizabeth Suzann in 2020, when sales could no longer cover overheads and payroll, she pivoted to selling patterns and fabrics and hosting workshops, initially to ensure that the designs she loved didn’t disappear into the ether.

Pape launched ES Made by Me in 2020 and was bolstered by the crafting resurgence during Covid, she says, which hasn’t dropped off since. “We haven’t seen a dip post-Covid — it’s growing. Once the match is lit, it really stays on for people,” Pape says.

While ES Made by Me was an extension of Pape’s existing slow fashion ethos, for French brand Promod, tapping into the craft market was both new territory and instrumental to adopting a different way of doing fashion. “In 2019, we realized that the market was changing [and] we needed to change our direction.

We started thinking, like everyone, about the planet, about consumption, the way we were selling clothes, and there was a passionate group of sewers in our company who thought we could sell the leftover fabric from production to customers,” says Juliette Devisscher, project manager of what became Promod Couture, a make-it-yourself platform selling fabric, sewing patterns, and DIY kits for popular Promod designs.

The brand recently launched its own book of sewing patterns and also sells to haberdasheries and craft stores. While it is growing, Promod Couture remains a small part of the overall business. “I could not compare it to the clothing business, because it’s really small, there’s not even €1 million [in revenue], but it’s important for us to keep it. It’s really part of the project of sustainability at the company,” Devisscher says.

Protecting your brand

Pape first toyed with selling sewing patterns when she launched Elizabeth Suzann in 2013. “Doing both created a bit of tension and competition. What if people started using my patterns to create competing garments? Selling the sewing patterns felt like there was a potential risk of cannibalizing the main part of my business,” she says.

Macaulay had concerns, too, and waited years before deciding to launch Hope’s Wool in case of copycats, but those buying ready-to-wear and those buying DIY supplies are very different audiences, the brand owners discovered. There are those who want the luxury of a finished piece and are willing to spend money on it, and those who want the enjoyment of making a piece and are willing to spend time on it.

Rather than creating competition, marketing to makers can open up an entirely new consumer base. “There is a more accessible price point with Hope’s Wool, it’s a good entry level to the brand,” says Macaulay.

That said, Macaulay does take steps to ring-fence her ready-to-wear brand so it still feels special to its core audience, selling a smaller selection of yarn colors (there are eight colorways of her signature colossal yarn available to buy versus the nearly 50 colorways used by the Hope Macaulay brand), and limiting knitting patterns to archival styles that are no longer for sale. “Our main signature piece is the colossal knit cardigan, and I don’t think I’ll ever give away that pattern because it’s so special to us,” Macaulay says.

Opening up the supply chain

It’s not only brands jumping into the hobby craft space. Suppliers are also opening up direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales channels to sell directly to the growing audience. Since 1907, Yorkshire yarn manufacturer Laxtons has sold yarns for handknitting, upholstery, apparel, and machine knitting business-to-business (BTB), but in 2020, like many others it leveraged the Covid-era crafting boost and launched sister brand By Laxtons, selling British handknitting wool directly to crafters.

In September, the company relaunched as Bramble & Fleece, with new place-based branding, as well as patterns and kits. The move follows 12 months of rapid growth for the sister brand, which now has distributors In America, Europe and Canada, and its sights set on more global markets.

“By Laxtons didn’t really feel like a brand, whereas Bramble & Fleece tells the whole story. The company was born in Bradford, so it just makes sense to hold onto that Yorkshire identity through and through,” says Rochelle Tracey, national account manager at Laxtons.

Though the new brand identity comes with updated patterns and kits created in collaboration with knitwear designers, they’ve always been an essential part of the DTC offering.

“When you’re launching a yarn brand, you need pattern support. Customers like having that inspiration,” says Tracey.

Finnish yarn manufacturer Novita (the largest manufacturer of handcraft yarns in the Nordic region) has also updated its image. Though it has always sold DTC, it evolved its products and services to be more user-friendly to all levels, adding functions such as yarn calculators and beginner kits to take the guesswork out of which supplies to buy and growing brand visibility to attract a new generation of makers.

It’s also collaborated with designers like Rolf Ekroth and By Hinders. “Our data indicates growing interest among younger audiences, particularly the 25 to 34 age group,” says Novita CMO Jenni Kuisma-Dillemuth.

“At the same time, engagement rates remain consistently strong across all age groups, demonstrating that the passion for handcraft spans generations.”

Forging community

If the act of making is a pushback against the creep of technology into all aspects of our lives, then crafting with others is a rebuttal of the isolation that comes with it.

Author and fashion commentator Andrea Cheong launched The Sewn Assembly as a way to take her online sustainability advice into the real world, running mending sessions and craft workshops. “There’s so much buzz online about fashion communities, but it doesn’t always play out that way. I thought about how lonely cities can be, so The Sewn Assembly brings people together to find like-minded people,” Cheong says.

Human connection plays an important role for the companies that have branched out into the craft world. Levi’s will be partnering with its long-term repair partner United Repair Centre in London and Paris to provide training to students and Levi’s employees in-person, the latter of whom will then serve as volunteer instructors in their own communities.

Promod Couture meets its customers at craft and yarn conventions, as does Bramble & Fleece, while ES Made by Me runs live workshops via Zoom. “There’s a very real sense of community.

They are getting that feeling [that they are] not alone at home working on something. [They are] with a group of people who are interested in the same thing, doing the same thing, living their lives,” says Pape.

Sarah Brunnhuber, founder of Danish label Stem, also embeds face-to-face connection into her brand. “I did a willow weaving workshop during [our fashion week] presentation last summer, where I invited guests to weave a small tray, so people could sit together, make something together and understand the basics of weaving,” the designer says.

Brunnhuber also plans to open a weaving mill in Denmark, a place for both production and education. “I feel like more and more, social media isn’t necessarily going to be how we reach our community.

People are craving physical experiences.”