Reusing existing resources instead of producing and using new ones. Or adapting clothes already worn, bought, left behind to your recent needs and tendencies.
My very short and slightly abstract way of bringing to the point what upcycling means, to me.
Meanwhile in most of my sewing and upcycling projects I set a big focus on the creating part of a garment I design, which requires a certain amount of dedication, skill, patience and tools. I don’t want to lose track on the basic idea I have behind “upcycling”.
The idea is pretty simple, and you can execute it without even any sewing skills or tools.
Sometimes just a pair of scissors can be enough.
How am I coming up with that now?
Recently I have been pretty busy with all sorts of things, which made me not able to do any sewing related business at all. Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean I haven’t been thinking about it, or haven’t had the time to visit some flea markets…
While I haven’t been able to make time for proper sewing, I still came up with some needs regarding my wardrobe. I realized, thanks to the summer weather and temperatures, that I am in fact not owning any shorts… can you believe it?
Despite me trying to minimize my belongings, I still own way too many clothes, wearable or waiting to be upcycled. And none of it are short trousers. Crazy.
In that state I could have gone to a shop, I guess and buy some, but that is a habit I gave up long time ago. I guess as any habit, once you change them it is hard to go back.
For this one I am glad, it became that way, too me.
I don’t see any value anymore to go and buy a garment for way too much money, that would be made from low quality fabrics in poor if not even awful working conditions.
Since sewing those trousers wasn’t an option (despite I tried but still didn’t finish as I talked about in my last article) I went to some secondhand shops and on the way found some flea markets too. I bought some trousers and cut the legs off. Finished.
See that’s how easy upcycling can be. Cost me 2euros and I didn’t have to waste tons of water, a new pair of trousers would use to be produced. (Mostly jeans need lots of water in the production process, I guess you’ll find that information on google if you can’t believe it:))
That was the first part of my fast-upcycling-experience.
Apart from the jeans I also found some sewing-magazines from the 80ies. An awesome source of inspiration, kind of Pinterest from back in the days. But isn’t it incredible that only forty years ago there seems to have been an actual bigish amount of people sewing their own clothes? Where have they gone?
Furthermore, not being able to work on my projects made me thing about my upcycling approach once more. And brought me to the conclusion, that I don’t only want to create things myself. But maybe also show how many simple but cool ways there would be to transform and upcycle existing clothes with very few resources. At the same time this would also prevent me from overengineering every single project and sometimes be able to enjoy a simpler process with a result I can be as happy about.
In that matter I digged out a top, I bought recently with upcycling intentions about it.
I bought it because the light see-through fabric reminded me of a top, I saw a girl in the streets wearing ages back, that I loved the look of. Hers was a see-through fabric with flowers and patterns embroided on it.
Even though I am usually all about silk and quality fabric garments for my upcycles, sometimes I just follow an instant inspiration or the attraction to an unusual pattern or color.
What’s cool about those kinds of synthetic fabrics is that sometimes you could just cut them, without having to secure the edges, they won’t unravel.
I didn’t really have an idea of what to do with the top, but now all I did was just to get rid of the synthetic double t-shirt underneath. To bring out the transparent fabric, letting the skin shine through.
Thats what I did...
...got rid of the undershirt...
...left with some of the fabric in the seems, but to be honest, despite for my random perfectionism, it doesent bother me.
I must admit, the answer to the question: "when we stopped to sew our own clothes?", is fairly simple.
It just takes too much time, which you don’t always have if you have other things going on in your life.
Nevertheless, it doesn’t have to be a fancy costume, coat or high fashion garment to design and sew from scratch every time. A pair of scissors and some two-bucks-secondhand-clothes also fit the deal.
(trousers and top I have been talking about)
Thanks to take the time to stop by and share my thoughts and stories with me!! Have a lovely week!
(all photos are taken by me)
I love the top, the fabric is very pretty, I think we also stopped sewing because sometimes buying a ready-made garment is cheaper than buying the fabric and doing a project from scratch, but if a garment is very cheap, we already know what it is savings in the process.
Thank you:) yes you are definitely right its like the "true" cost of things is very unbalanced.. or unquestioned maybe.
It is that we are also very badly used to it, we want everything now, at a low price and beautiful, quality was left aside a lot, it is what happens in Argentina with clothes, the fast fashion industry generated that in all users
yes ..with too many versions of the same thing, just slightly different
Nice to read you again!
My generation did not have mothers who stitched clothing, but they did mend them, the practice then was to inherit from an older sibling, or give away.
My best friend had! Her mom sews and knits so well it made me always a bit jealous. 😂
We are in a saturated age of consumerism, labor is cheap, therefore the production of synthetics (the one you mercilessly rejected :D) is also low cost, which results in a cheap product and hyper EVERYTHING (production, employment, money flow).
Labels- there is no more stupid thing in the world than LABELS, personally know the people who are paying for it, and openly judge to me as I love secondhands.
Lack of time, creativity, ability and other excuses.
Not sure where are you from, but earlier in our elementary school system we had a "Household" subject, that dealt with daily activities including knitting, sewing, and cooking, basic survival things.
Nowdays you can not find proper tailor, crafts are dead as huge companies entered market, products are low cost, affordable (it's just a cloth), we are earning and spending, again money flow.
We messed up somewhere, in order that create better lives for ourselves.
Most common question "Who will wait a whole month on that dress?",but couture will aways be couture.
Consider your talent as a privilege and enjoy in it, not everyone have it. 😉
yesss I agree!!
To me it was more my grandmother-generation, where I could find a bit of that (she used to make me some costumes for myself and my puppets) and I think she would have been sewing for herself or her children at the time.. I guess its getting harder to find from generation to generation.
Even though I do also find labels that produce local and fair with organic fabrics, but the price is for sure very different from the massproductions, like way too expensive for most people... where it just gets really unbalanced between the cheep and the more sustainable way (adding the labels expensive in prize but cheep production)
yes we also had household lessons, its where I used to steal lots of scissors and savety-pins from😅 but also did knitting and cooking and so on..
And thank you!! its really nice to have you around:)
Personally I have many friends in fashion, all of them are striving to stay sustainable, but that costs so much that final product price isn't affordable, even when discounted. :D
Yes thats unfortunate, even though I think there is a lot of "waste" that could be reused and would lower the cost. I guess the craft or labor is the most expensive part in sustainable approaches.. (I would guess)
Most of them are playing several roles, like you.
The main problem are fabrics, finding the quality and available one, or you have to buy the whole roll (only says that market is supporting hyper production, quantity over quality).
Lack of support of small business.
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Thank you😊 thats very nice to hear!!
Thank you for the inspiration.
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