Unpopular opinion: Thrift store refashioning is more creative than designing from scratch

I spent 6 months only making clothes from thrifted pieces, altering and combining them into new stuff. People kept saying I was just copying or reusing, not really designing. But honestly, the constraints of working with existing fabrics and shapes forced me to be way more inventive than when I had a blank canvas. My best piece was a mens blazer turned into a corset top that got me 50 likes on IG. Which side are you on - is true design only from raw materials, or is upcycling its own legit art form?

2 comments

2 Comments

parker54325d ago

Working with old seams and darts is like solving a puzzle where the solution has to look good, which forces you to think way more than starting from scratch. Those constraints push you to see a sleeve as waist detail or a collar as a hemline, stuff that doesn't happen when you just cut new fabric. Upcycling is absolutely its own legit art form, especially when you're reworking a 90s mens blazer into something that actually fits and turns heads.

viola17125d ago

Started taking apart an old leather jacket last week and got totally sidetracked by the way the original stitching was holding together. Ended up turning one of the sleeves into a kind of bag strap, which my friend said looked like a mini tote but also kind of a hood. It wasn't really planned, I just got curious about how the seams would lay if I folded them a certain way. That's the fun part, you start with one idea and the fabric itself starts telling you what it wants to be next.