Project recycle
Do-it-yourself fashionistas find inspiration among thrift store racks
Each season on “Project Runway,” Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn instruct fashion hopefuls to make couture out of what could essentially be called trash.
From fabric of old garments to deconstructed denim to, well, trash, these salvaged materials are used to create styles that make viewers’ mouths drop open with awe. As environmental awareness grows and shoppers yearn for individual looks on a budget, people everywhere are getting in on the recycled fashion trend. Hey, who said you need Tim Gunn to make it work?
Mary Beth Merlo has been finding creative ways to update her family’s wardrobes for years. From sewing her two daughters’ prom dresses to fashioning purses out of empty juice boxes, Merlo has done it all. In an attempt to be environmentally friendly and fiscally conservative, she’s a frequent shopper at thrift stores and garage sales, looking for undiscovered treasures.
“If I saw a neat fabric, even if the garment wasn’t something I would ever wear, I’d cut it apart and use the fabric to make purses or scarves,” she said. “I’ve bought stuff at Salvation Army that I thought had really neat buttons and used the buttons for something else. We took T-shirts and sewed all different kinds of buttons around the yoke to give it an eclectic look.”
When Merlo’s daughter Norelle was in high school, the pair gathered ties from the Salvation Army, and Mary Beth Merlo sewed them together lengthwise to create a skirt for her daughter. After an onslaught of compliments, the pair made more to sell to friends and even to local retailer Sweet & Dirty, beginning a small local trend. However, her daughters weren’t always begging for thrift-inspired clothes.
“When my girls were little, probably 95 percent of their clothes I bought at garage sales and Goodwill,” Mary Beth Merlo said.
“There was a point where they were embarrassed by that, but then in high school they would have a cool outfit, and people would ask them, ‘Oh, where did you get that?’ They would say AMVETS, and then it became a cool thing to do.”
Generation T
Merlo’s daughters’ learned affection for making old clothes new makes them part of what author Megan Nicolay refers to as “Generation T.” Nicolay’s book “Generation-T:108 Ways to Transform a T-shirt” offers step-by-step instructions for turning simple tees into redesigned tops, skirts, backpacks and accessories.
Nicolay, who has been refashioning T-shirts since she was a little girl, said she was constantly teaching her tricks to friends in college. After getting a job in publishing after graduation, a book seemed like the next step.
“People would come to me and say ‘fix this,’ and rather than becoming a one-woman sweatshop, I told them we would fix it together because it’s so easy; talent doesn’t have anything to do with it,” she said. “Fast-forward to publishing, and I saw a book as a way of reaching a number of people at once.”
As someone who prefers to make her clothing or shop at thrift stores over malls and mass retailers, Nicolay pulls from current fashion trends for her designs, a third of which require no sewing.
“I get inspired by people-watching in the streets, by browsing store racks of extremely expensive items and scrunching up my nose thinking, ‘I could so make that!’ ” she said. “You can watch the Oscars and watch the amazing dresses go down the red carpet and get ideas for transforming that old raggedy T-shirt in the back of your closet. No, it’s not going to look like a label, but it’s going to have its own special elegance.”
Nicolay said the groundwork she created with the book can be used as a jumping-off point for people interested in creating their own designs.
“Someone had posted a scarf on the Web site that was inspired by a tube-top project in the book, and that’s really the spirit of the book, so that makes me so happy,” she said.
Goodwill fashions
Taking the trend one step further is William Good, a clothing line created entirely from Goodwill donations. Dreamed up by Nick Graham, the San Francisco designer and Joe Boxer founder, William Good uses a team of designers to create modern clothing out of discarded Goodwill donations — clothing that was either flawed or failed to sell within 30 days and would otherwise be recycled.
“Goodwill had been thinking about it and had been working on a business plan, but we didn’t have the design savvy, and Nick didn’t have the tonnage of clothing or the labor force,” said Holly Goodliffe, communications manager of Goodwill Industries of San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin counties. Graham realized the potential of teaming up with Goodwill Industries while driving past a Goodwill in the San Francisco Bay Area. He put a call in to Goodwill, and William Good was born soon after.
After launching a successful pilot phase in 2007, which produced a limited amount of one-of- a-kind items with an average price of $25 to $80, William Good is scheduled to have a permanent line in stores by Fall 2009, mixing thrift with high-fashion design.
“Vintage and thrift shopping is already popular for the privileged crowd. It’s a very specific demographic we’re targeting: people that like to be original, like to be a trendsetter and like the environmental goodness of it,” Goodliffe said. “I know a lot of young people who won’t buy any new clothes anymore, and why would you when there’s so much good used stuff out there?”
Vintage styles
For those who don’t have the patience to leaf through thrift-store racks and are willing to spend a little more, vintage clothing retailers can further provide unique styles.
Danielle Webb, owner of the Dress Shop, carries vintage clothing at her East Aurora location. She said that aside from great quality and beautiful fabrics, vintage clothing gives buyers an opportunity to stand out in a crowd.
“You’ll never see yourself. You’re an individual,” she said.
Webb, whose vintage collection is heavy with dresses, said many young girls shopping for the prom opt to buy a vintage dress and shorten the length to create a more modern look.
“There’s a million dresses out there for the prom, and there’s a million girls wearing the same dress.” she said. “Vintage shows you have an imagination and you’re distinctive.”
Even feet are getting in on the action. The current issue of Craft magazine features a do-it-yourself section dedicated to shoes, from decorating old sneakers to constructing your own sandals. Tina Barseghian, Craft’s editor in chief, said that while some projects may seem ambitious, there are always simpler alternatives.
“It’s just a matter of inspiration,” she said. “If it’s something that you’re tired of looking at, or you’re tired of wearing the same shoe that you’ve been wearing, go out, look around at other styles that inspire you, and try to add those embellishments to make what you’ve got even better than it is.”
