How to be a Frugal Fashionista - Recyled Clothing

This is such a HUGE subject that I think this will be a series of articles to do with clothes, shopping and generally looking fabulous!

I've sorted out your skincare regime so now it's time to take a look in your wardrobe.

I touched on this in the last article, applying Adrienne's principles to my holiday wardrobe. What I didn't say was that the week after my frugal holiday I did a (not so very but it will pay for itself in the end) frugal summer school.... at the London College of Fashion.

The course cost me more than my holiday to Portugal - but it was the most fun I've had in a really long time. I have a creative streak - which doesn't get much attention in the office world so it was a real "change is as good as a rest" week - and it rocked.

The course I did was called Recycled Clothing and it runs as a 5 day course, Summer, Autumn and Spring - the Autumn 2008 course fees are £330. I paid £400 as the teaching house in the summer are longer.

The purpose of the course is to show you how to take your existing wardrobe and make it into something you actually want to wear by either altering it to fit you properly, customising it to update it or cutting it up and making something totally different. I chose 3 pieces (and stupidly did not take before shots - so you'll have to take my word for it!) a beautiful cashmere jumper given to me by a friend as one of her boss's cast offs (love being City PA sometimes), a skirt from a suit which I always suspected made me look old and a bodice top which fitted me about 2million bars of chocolate ago!

The Jumper was a man's 50" chest roll neck in grey marl. So soft that I used to wear it to cuddle up on the sofa with no one watching. The roll neck at the top and the welt at the bottom were so tight and the middle so baggy that I took on the look of a boiled sweet, twisted tight at both ends - not for public consumption! I was gutted about that because it was such a beautiful jumper and I really wanted to show it off a bit. Looking at the course tutor's samples I got the idea to make it into a jacket - and being on the course gave me the confidence to just go for it with the scissors...

it's now this:

I cut off the welt at the bottom, the neck at the top and straight up the middle of the front.

I then, very carefully seamed the from by rolling the cut edge back and hiding it under a length of ribbon.

The trim around the neck and the down the front is slightly stretchy so it was easier to shape it round the neck.

The frill at the sleeve cuff is what used to be round the bottom.

I'm thrilled with how this turned out - I just wish I had the time in real life to be able to do this kind of thing will all my clothes. The difficulty with frugality is the time it can take to go the frugal way round.

I am definite that I WILL get out of the habit of going out on a Friday lunchtime to buy a top for a night out. It's a dangerous trap of desperation that can prove expensive when your mind does that - I really need it and it's £45 so I'll just have to get it.

The resolution now is that I will only wear things I own or have really thought about buying. And if I don't like what I've already got - what can i do to make it work. Thinking beyond adding a broach or a funky necklace and actually looking at things in my wardrobe that I've discounted due to a minor flaw and trying to fix that is defiantly what I should do first.