Posh Swaps Blog

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you are just bored with an item of clothing, you could make it more interesting by embellishing it, if you feel it is out of date, you could change the style to something more current, if it no longer fits you or is damaged in some way, you may want to deconstruct it and then make it into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

After the success of our last clothes swap party in Chiswick in September, we can’t wait until our next clothes swap party in the historic city of Bath on 24th November. With christmas just around the corner, this will a great opportunity to look for something lovely to wear to a Christmas party and stock up on pressies from the Posh Swaps fashion and beauty market.

The party will be held in the picturesque setting of the Bath Guild Hall and swappers will get the chance to have a very frugal girls night out with tickets costing only £10 (in advance) and including a glass of wine and nibbles, plus a goody bag with fashion and beauty goodies.

Clothes swap or swishing parties are a great alernative to shopping, they are not only fun but also eco friendly and frugal.

Further information and to buy tickets click here: Posh Swaps Clothes Swap Party Bath

At Posh Swaps, we love this recycled eco jewellery range by Anna Clifton. Anna’s newest work is made using or rather “re-using” aluminium drinks cans and recycled glass beads to create beautiful pieces of jewellery and bridal hair accessories. Anna also takes commissions for bespoke pieces.  

Anna Clifton Jewellery prides itself on being an “Environmentally Friendly” company. It is a family run business where each and every piece of jewellery (including tiaras, circlets and hair accessories) is made by hand in the UK.

Anna Clifton Jewellery is a home run business and has strong environmental beliefs. They re-use, recycle and compost as much as is physically possible, use energy saving light bulbs, don’t leave appliances and electrical equipment on standby, always buy local wherever possible and are a one car family.

By using recycled materials in their work they cut down on the use of raw materials. All other pieces are made using traditional hand silversmithing and wire working techniques and waste material is kept to the bare minimum .

The perfect piece of jewellery to compliment your second hand eco wedding dress.

My first reaction to this picture of of two suited men  at New York Fashion Week is to laugh. I found the picture on Lela Luxe and on further reading realised that all is not as it seems. The clear plastic suit made from recycled bottles is not actually a fashion statement but more an elaborate statement to show how a suit made from recycled bottles is not what you would expect. The man on the right is wearing a suit made by Bagir, an Israel-based tailored apparel manufacturer that specializes in high-tech suiting innovations. It is made from ECOGIR™ a fabric made from recycled plastic bottles. The fabric is machine washable and can be tumbled dried so is also eco friendly in that it does not require dry cleaning.

This is another great example of ways that you can help the planet without compromising on style.

You may have heard of the term swishing and wondered whta on earth it means? Swishing is a relatively new term used to describe a clothes swap party. It can be a small party amongst friends arranged at someones house or a large scale party with hundreds of swappers. The term was coined by Futerra Sustainability Communications in order to promote the recycling of clothes.

The general idea of a swish is that each attendee brings along at least one piece of clothing that they no longer want but would be proud to pass onto someone else. All of the clothes are laid out and guests are given the opportunity to browse, perhaps whilst enjoying a glass of wine or some light refreshments. A warning is given 5 minutes before the beginning of the swap and then the swap begins. Everyone can choose which items of clothing they would like. Things can get quite heated a bit like in the sales with everyone grabbing for the stuff they want.

Each swishing party is different, some have stalls, beauty treatments, entertainment of refashioning where party goers can adjust and change an item of clothing that they love some aspects of but is not quite right.

Swishing is proving o be immensly popular in the UK and all over the world, which is understandable, it is eco friendly, a great way to refresh your wardrobe without spending lots of money and best of all it is really fun.

If you fancy going along to a swish, find out about Posh Swaps Clothes Swap parties. Alternatively you can swap your clothes online at www.posh-swaps.com.

Glove Love is an initiative by Green Thing, where they take lonely single gloves that have lost their original partners, wash them and then pair them with brand new glove lovers. You can either donate single gloves, or buy a matched pair for a fiver. This shirt film/ commercial featuring the voie of Emma Thompson was filmed by Michael Wright and Mustard. A really fun way to recycle and cut down on waste, we love it. Alternatively, you could swap your old gloves on Posh-swaps.com.

Green Thing is a public service that inspires people to lead a greener life. With the help of brilliant videos and inspiring stories from creative people and community members around the world, Green Thing focuses on seven things you can do - and enjoy doing. Join people from 202 countries doing their green things and making a difference

estethica at London Fashion week seems to gaining pace. This time the British Fashion councils ethical initiative has added 13 new designer and 9 new labels making a total of 28 designers. estethica is all about fashion which is ethical but also achieves design excellence. Great news, we don’t think that just being ethical is enough, we want the clothes to look great as well.

We have already posted about North Circular the new label by top models with knitwear knitted by grannies using locally produced ethical wool. Other exciting new additions to estethica for this season are AJNA with a collection inspired by natures beauty and crafted by indigenous textile artisans in Peru, Nepal, Bolivia, India, as well as locally in New York in a range of eco friendly materials including The materials used are organic cotton, hemp silk, ahimsa silk(vegan wild silk), biodegradable viscose, bamboo, sasawashi(bamboo leaves and paper), pina(pineapple), abaca(banana leaf), organic wool, himalayan cashmere and indigenous alpaca. Beryl Man, designer at AJNA is also the former knitwear design director at Donna Karan.

All estethica designers adhere to at least one of the three estethica principles of fair-trade and ethical practices, organic and recycled materials. It is great to see support of recycling in the fashion industry. We love clothes swapping but there are also lots of innovative labels finding new ways to recycle and create beautiful clothes.

picture from www.londonfashionweek.co.uk

Nina Dolcetti is the label started by Elisalex Grunfeld de Castro in 2008 after she graduated from Cordwainers in 2005. The high end shoes that she makes are both luxurious and sustainable. The upcycled materials used for these design led, avant garde shoes are off cuts and remnants and unwanted pre consumer waste. They are hand made in a work shop in East London.

The label which showed at Esthetica, London Fashion Week, recognises the waste within the fashion industry and the environmentally unfriendly effects of leather tanning. Yet another exciting development in our search for luxurious but sustainable style.

picture from www.londonfashionweek.co.uk

Back in February, we posted about the launch of the Government’s sustainable clothing action plan during London Fashion Week and how Posh-swaps.com is supporting the action plan by promoting and enabling the reuse and recycling of clothes through swapping, buying and selling second hand clothes.

Shared Talent India, one of London College of Fashion’s Centre for Sustainable Fashion’s (CSF) key projects of 2009 funded by Defra and supported by the Indian Government, was showcased on the Monsoon stand at Estethica at London Fashion Week. The project is one of a series of actions being implemented by the clothing and fashion sector under the Defra-led Sustainable Clothing Action Plan and Roadmap process to improve the environmental and ethical performance of clothing.

Born out of a collaboration between UK and Indian designers and London College of Fashion (LCF), Pearl Academy India and AMFI Amsterdam Fashion Institute students, the project has explored and promoted the design applications of a range of sustainable Indian textiles. Earlier this summer the group took part in a ten day workshop in Delhi to produce concepts to showcase Indian sustainable textiles and share their skills and designers and makers. After being showcased at London Fashion Week the collection will go to Indian Fashion Week in October 2009.

The award winning Shared Talent project model, developed to find transformative solutions through collaboration, has already been successfully applied to communities in Ghana and South Africa. Shared Talent India kicked off early in 2009 with a call out by the CSF for applications from UK-based designers and liaised with Pearl Academy to recruit India-based designers* to take part in the project. The designers along with selected AMFI and LCF students travelled to India to engage in a programme of activity including workshops and active design collaboration to produce concepts to showcase the sustainable textiles.

Accompanying the group were members of the Monsoon team; Head of Design, Kim Elliott commented, “This is an exciting collaboration between fashion students and designers in the UK and India which reflects our heritage and we are proud to be involved with it. The students brief for this project will showcase some quite directional design work demonstrating the fashion potential of sustainable textiles, the outcome of which will be displayed on the Monsoon stand at London Fashion Week in September.”

further information can be found on http://www.defra.gov.uk/news/2009/090918b.htm

Forget the latest Chloe, Mulberry or Louis Vuitton handbag, when it comes to carrying your stuff around in sustainable style, the Posh-swaps.com bag is just what you need. Swapping is the new shopping and at a clothes swap, you will definitely need something to carry all your goodies home in. The bags which are Fairtrade accredited and manufactured in a carbon neutral factory are also so much better for the environment than carrier bags. They are long lasting, reusable and biodegradable and perfect for swapping, shopping or even school or college.

The Limited Edition Posh-Swaps.com reusable cotton bag will be given to all attendees at the First Ever Posh Swaps Clothes Swap Party on 17th September. But we are also offering users of the Posh-swaps.com website the chance to purchase one (while stocks last) at only £2 plus postage and packing.