Guest Post: DIY Fashion Tips

DIY fashion is becoming increasingly popular as a way of saving your money, while allowing for experimentation with your wardrobe. You can make a statement with DIY fashion in lots of ways, from making small changes to your wardrobe, to creatively cutting and tailoring items to make new clothes. At the same time, it’s worth doing some vintage shopping, and exploring more ethical fashion choices for ‘upcycling’ and other fun ways of making the most of outfits. Similarly, it’s important to think about how you can produce unique items for your personal style from everyday items.

Knowing Your Wardrobe

The most important thing that you need to do if getting into DIY fashion is to take a long look through your wardrobe, and decide what you can work on. DIY fashion is as much about using what you’ve already got, as it is about mixing and matching new items. Look at clothes that you haven’t worn for a while, and think about how you can easily adjust them, or strip them down to make new clothes. Old tops can become material for dresses, jeans can be cut into skirts, and bags can be turned into clutches. Similarly, keep an eye out for old clothes that still have useful or expensive materials that have life in them.

Creative Cuts

A big part of DIY fashion is being able to wield a pair of scissors and a sewing kit. If you haven’t got a lot of experience in adjusting your own clothes, start small with old T shirts or battered jackets, and try cutting or hemming out buttons, and adjusting collars. Dress patterns can be easily downloaded, and while it takes a bit of time, you can quickly start working on cutting up items and altering. Some of the easiest places to start are with trimming out waists and backs for better sizes, and reducing knee length skirts to miniskirts.

Vintage Searching

Anyone who’s serious about DIY fashion needs to be on top of the local vintage scene. This means knowing your vintage shops, and any local markets and street stalls that can be explored for useful outfits, accessories, and material. Although it’s generally easier to find a good range of sellers in big cities, looking online, and joining mailing lists means that you can get ahead of the game when it comes to clothes swaps, and wholesale clearances from charity jobs and clothing fairs.

More Ethical Fashion

You can save money and help benefit the environment by investing in more ethical fashion. Some of the easiest ways to achieve these benefits are to reuse and adjust old clothes, rather than buying new ones. Similarly, you can hold clothes swaps with friends to get a good bargain on old clothes, and can look for Fairtrade and other eco friendly logos at shops. Another approach is to ‘upcycle’ old items like worn out bags and dresses through creative stitching, dying, and use of their materials.

Making Items

Some easy items that you can make a start on if you want to build up a good collection of accessories and other pieces include headbands, necklaces and bags. Headbands can be easily made using fabric swatches, flowers and beads, while necklaces and rings can be simply made using existing loops and any useful items that you want to display as jewelery.

Author Bio

Serena Grant is a freelance copywriter specializing in the Fashion industry. She would recommend UK company Choice for fashion subjects such as rising brands, different styles of designer clothing and upcoming trends. One of her favorite brands available at Choicestore is Boy London.