stitch to give it extra reinforcement and pressed the pedal. The thread snarled inside the machine immediately. But I simply took everything apart and set up the machine again, and then I patched my pants. Over the next few weeks, I patched more jeans, hemmed skirts, and took in the side seams on my baggy T-shirts. I somehow went thirty-one years without knowing how fulfilling it is to care for and personalize my clothes.
M
ost people are actually far more particular about their style than they realize, which is partly why we feel so frustrated with the clothes in our closets. There are so many things that we would wear if they were tweaked or just slightly altered. Dresses or skirts are rarely the perfect length, the color is wrong, shirts often hit us in not quite the right place, straps are too long or too short. We buy tops that we love except for that annoying ruffle or tie or bow. For me, learning to sew wasn’t necessarily about making everything I wear. It taught me that clothes aren’t static and unchanging. They can be altered, mended, and even totally rebuilt. Virtually everything in my closet suddenly had some potential to be something I’d get more use out of and maybe even love. Sewing also gave me the ability to recognize garments crafted with skill and care and made me crave quality clothing. I now see what a waste of money cheap fashion really is, because the materials and sewing often aren’t even worth owning.
J
illian Owens, twenty-nine, is a Columbia, South Carolina, native and was a lifetime thrift-store shopper, until
secondhand finds started to dry up. “I got burned out on thrifting because there wasn’t that much there,” Owens says. “A lot of stuff that you’ll find at thrift stores is old H&M stuff, and it’s completely worn-out.” A few years ago she received a sewing machine as a Christmas gift and took it as a sign that she should try to sew her own clothes instead. She went to a local fabric store but was soon feeling defeated again. It was cheaper to buy clothes than it was to make them.
S
ewing your own clothes can be very inexpensive. The cost depends on the quality of the fabric and the complexity of the garment. For Owens, it was important to not spend a penny more making clothes than she would to buy them new in a store. “Sewing used to be something women did to be thrifty,” she says. “The fact that you could go buy an item of clothing new for less than what it would cost you to go to the trouble of making it seemed weird and wrong.” So Owens returned to the thrift store, this time with the idea of buying used clothes and restyling them. She bought ill-fitting and out-of-date garments and lobbed off shoulder pads, cut off sleeves, and hiked up hems. For one project, Owens took a powder blue 1980s Liz Claiborne sack dress that overwhelmed her small frame and altered it into a cute, modern cocktail dress. She’s made a ball gown out of men’s dress shirts and a hip-hugging skirt out of a soccer jersey. “There’s something so rewarding in making something yourself and fixing something yourself,” Owens says. So rewarding in fact she’s spun her restyling projects into a successful blog, ReFashionista, September/October 2013
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