Posh Swaps Blog

Today we have some great examples of second hand style and how you can make great outfits with thrifted or secondhand clothes. The photographs were sent to us by Cynthia, who has a website and Etsy shop selling beautiful re-purposed clothing, purses, hats and lovely accessories.

This piece is adorable, it has a lot of vintage stuff on it. The fringe is actually off of an old drama curtain. It hangs beautifully around this lace and satin ruffle. She added a few bobbles with the vintage earring broach it is removable for dry cleaning. Every thing in this piece is up-cycled for new use.

vintage slip remade, skirt goodwill, boots thrifted‏

This is a really darling coat. It just glitters with thoughts of the holiday season. Small multi-color sequins have been sewn on the coat for the festive feel. Great for over your special party dress. Looks super with jeans as well.

Today we have some great examples of second hand style and how you can make great outfits with thrifted or secondhand clothes. The photographs were sent by Cynthia, who has a website and Etsy shop selling beautiful re-purposed clothing, purses, hats and lovely accessories.

Timberland and fashion recycling charity TRAID have collaborated on a project to supply customers with a range of bags made from 100% recycled denim, leather and reconditioned Timberland shirts and jackets.

The collaboration involves the design and production by the recycled TRAIDremade fashion label (Textile Recycling for Aid and International Development) of a collection of limited edition, handmade ‘eco bags’ exclusively for sale in Timberland stores.

According to Timberland, the new initiative is part of the company’s ongoing commitment to socially responsible retailing. Working closely with TRAID, the company already offers in store recycling points in its London stores and under the ‘Change Your Wardrobe, Change Their Lives’ scheme, it also offers customers 20% off new purchases when they recycle clothes they no longer need or want. TRAID then transform these clothes through their charity shops into funds to fight global poverty.

“Timberland is proud to partner TRAID, as both companies have similar goals of producing fashionable and functional products whilst maintaining a strong social conscience and positive community interaction,” said head of Timberland Marketing UK Jo Fisher.

“It’s incredibly exciting to have created this collection of TRAIDremade bags for Timberland,” added head of TRAIDremade Paula Kirkwood. “We’ve reincarnated old jackets, leathers, shirts and denims into must have bags that are fashionable, functional and ethical.”

bag from TRAIDremade

What can make from a load of old rubbish? Quite a lot actually. I seem to come across more and more examples of very stylish upcycled fashion lately, especially accessories. I’m talking about the sort of gorgeous pieces that you desperately have to have not because they are eco friendly but because they will look amazing and make a real style statement with that …..

The more recycled pieces that I find, the more I think about how much we throw away. With jewellery made from such a diverse range of found items and scarfs and other accessories made from all sorts of beautiful reclamimed, vintage and second hand materials.

To get some inspiration or some lovely recycled fashion, just try searching ‘trashion fashion’ on Etsy. I hope you love what you find as much as I did. Don’t forget, if you are making upcycled/ recycled fashion, www.posh-swaps.com is a great place to source materials and sell you creations (for free).

This bracelet called coffee berries by Jupita is made from old gift cards.

This hot asphalt recycled LP necklace made by Tresijas is as the name suggests made from an old record, heated and then folded over to give the appearance of a warped pavement.

This Ladybug Fairy Hood by Fairytale Fibres looks both stylish and warm and is made from 100% upcycled wool.

Frugal living is currently a necessity for many people but has also become quite fashionable as people find new and creative ways to live on a minimal budget. The media have likened this frugality to the second world war when rationing and shortages forced people to ’make do and mend’. John Lewis has even rewritten a wartime make do and mend booklet for modern times. It gives some great tips that still apply today as well as some new ones such as the economic use of the central heating.

This make do and mend philosophy, is not just frugal but also environmentally friendly and a real contrast to throw away society that has become so prevalent in recent years. Make do and mend positively encourages a reduction in waste and recycling in all sorts of different ways. Some thing that may be quite alien to many but that fits in perfectly with the current economic climate and make do and mend philosophy is making do with the clothes we have instead of buying new. Of course it help greatly if the clothes were great quality and classic styles in the first place.

A whole movement of fashionistas has began to spring up around the make do and mend idea. Clothes swapping, swishing parties, clothing repair and alteration, buying and selling second hand clothes and refashioning/ reworking old clothes have all become popular ways not just of saving money and the environment but also of creating unique, interesting and beautiful outfits.

Refashioning clothes is a huge trend at the moment. It is both an economical and eco friendly way to keep your wardrobe up to date and even better it is a great way of creating unique and individual clothes that no one else will have. Recycling is already big news with recent years seeing a surge in the sales of second hand and vintage clothes as well as the phenomena of clothes swapping. By refashioning second hand and vintage clothes, fashionistas are taking it one step further and getting fresh, innovative and up to the minute clothes. Refashioning clothes is also great fun.

When you refashion your wardrobe, you just need to take any clothes that you no longer wear and change them into something that you will wear. For each piece that you no longer wear, you need to think about why you don’t wear it and what would make you more likely to wear it. For example, if you are just bored with an item of clothing, you could make it more interesting by embellishing it, if you feel it is out of date, you could change the style to something more current, if it no longer fits you or is damaged in some way, you may want to deconstruct it and then make it into something completely different.

Dying or bleaching - You can change the colour of a garment by dying or bleaching it. There are a variety of techniques that can be used to create patterns using bleach or dyes.

Shortening - you can shorten or remove sleeves, cut off jeans and shorten a dress to become a top. Depending on the look that you are trying to achieve, you can either leave the shortened edges raw or hem or finish them.

Cutting - cutting is a great way to restyle t shirts. You can cut out the neckline and cut slashes across the t shirt.

Embellishing - There are countless ways that you can embellish a garment including beading, adding trims like lace, appliqué, and embroidery.

Fitting - a piece of clothing that does not fit properly can be altered to make it fit perfectly.

Deconstructing and reconstructing - For those with more advanced sewing and dressmaking skills, a piece of clothing can be turned into something completely different by taking it apart and using the fabric or trims to create another piece of clothing.

There are so many ways that you can refashion clothes to create a really original wardrobe. You will be helping to reduce the ever growing problem of landfill and saving yourself money. Your outfits will definitely be right on trend.

picture from office.co.uk

You can sell your used and refashioned or recycled clothes on www.posh-swaps.com for free. Refashioning is a great way to create your own line of individual clothes. It is not only fun and good for the environment but it is also a great way to make money. If your old clothes are looking a bit out of date refashioning them is a great way to bring them right up to date. There are so many ways to refashion clothes including dying, embellishing, shortening and deconstructing and reconstructing them into a completely new piece of clothing.

You can also sell second hand, designer, high street and vintage clothes on Posh-swaps.com.

Set up your Posh-swaps.com account today and start listing your items.

I recently posted about a DIY refashioning project where I used bleach to create patterns on T shirts and turn a boring plain t shirt into something a bit different. I have now tried out the same technique on a pair of old jeans. This a great way of breathing new life into a pair of faded black jeans. The bleach not only creates a great pattern on the jeans but also changes them from faded black to a nice grey colour. You can vary the colour of the jeans, the pattern and the contrast of the pattern depending on how long you leave the bleach for. For my refashioning project, I scrunched the jeans up and rolled in some neat bleach in the bottom of a washing up bowl, left for 2 or three minutes and then filled the bowl up with water before leaving for a further 10 minutes and rinsing well.

For a less striking pattern leave the neat bleach on for less time and for a lighter overall effect leave the jeans to soak in the diluted bleach for longer. There is a bit of trial and error involved. The first time, I didn’t get enough pattern had to try again.

Don’t forget to protect your clothes when using bleach and wear rubber gloves!

We are pleased to present our first Posh Swaps DIY refashion project. We thought that we would start off with something fairly simple. We have refashioned two boring old t shirts/ tops by bleaching them. It can take a little bit of trial and error to get the desired effect, but it is really quite simple. We used some tops/ t shirts that we bought from a second hand shop for a few pounds.

All we did was to bundle the t shirts up and tie them loosely with string. We then covered our clothes with an apron to protect and donned some very attractive rubber gloves. We put a bit of bleach in the bottom of a washing up bowl and rolled the tops in the bleach. We left for about 3 or 3 minutes before topping the bowl up with water and leaving for another 10 minutes. We then cut the string and rinsed the tops really well.

For the eco friendly option, you can use an eco friendly bleach like Ecover.

This black top turned orange when bleached. I love the effect even if it does look a little like the hippy tie dye thing. It is worth experimenting with the amount of bleach coverage for different effects. A bit more bleach and this top would have been even more orange.

This orange t shirt changed yellow when bleached, making it a really colourful summer t shirt.

All Posh Swaps Refashion projects are available to buy on www.posh-swaps.com

Top designer & stylist, Mrs Jones has created a limited edition collection of only 30 reinvented Oxfam pieces that are on sale now in the Camden High Street Oxfam Store and Oxfam online. Each piece is made from second hand clothes so is completely unique and there is certainly nothing last year about these clothes.

Tie Dye Brittania - the all English sundress in trendy denim

Hats off to  monochrome - an incredible bustier dress in black and white

Shipmate Stripes and Shirts - sailors stripes and shirty checks.

Cheeky nautical stowaway - this striped mini declares ‘genius’ across the derriere

Eighties biker revival - embellished black leather bomber with black and white patch print leggings

Even if you don’t buy any of these, there are some great ideas for DIY projects that you could work on yourself. Don’t forget you can also buy and sell refashioned, reworked and restyled second hand clothes on Posh Swaps.

Just incase you were in any doubt as to how trendy eco fashion is, it had now been confirmed by the launch of a collection made from recycled clothes at Topshop. Topshop is considered the most cutting edge and innovative of the high street fashion store and it’s introduction of a line of recycled clothing proves that being green is red hot. It follows in the footsteps of Oxfam’s recycled DIY collection which has recieved plenty of publicity lately.

The collection is by the Eco brand My Only One, that used second hand and women’s vintage clothing to create beautiful and fresh new designs. The ideas come from a team of innovative and emerging designers.

The collection will launch at the Oxford  Street store of Topshop and will be called Sport Noveau. It will feature stylishly reconstructed sportswear.