> "We lost the ability to mend"

No we haven't. If you need to sew on a button and you can't figure out how to do it from looking at a piece of thread, a needle, and the other buttons, then go spend fifteen minutes on a Youtube tutorial. It's easy.

If the task is more complicated any you really like the piece, consider the fact that in terms of opportunity cost, it's almost certainly cheaper for you to send the piece across the country (or the globe) and back than having it fixed by yourself.