CLONE YOUR CLOTHES • Claire-Louise Hardie
Sew a sustainable capsule wardrobe that is tailored to you and with it, help break the cycle of throw-away fashion.
The fashion industry is the second biggest environmental polluter on the planet. Every year, over 350,000 tonnes of clothing is sent to landfill in the UK just under 14 million tonnes in the US much of it owing to fast fashion. Furthermore, it’s estimated that many of us wear only 20% of our wardrobe regularly, with the other 80% languishing in our wardrobes unworn, or worse contributing to those ever-growing landfill figures.
We urgently need to find alternative, more sustainable approaches that allow us to have the stylish wardrobes we crave without hurting our planet. The techniques you learn in The Re:Fashion Wardrobe is one of those alternatives.
Learn how to alter or create entirely new garments from pre-loved clothes or forgotten fabrics that are not only chic but don't cost the earth. Beginning with advice on equipment, fabrics and how to source your clothes for refashioning, Portia Lawrie will then take you stepbystep through a collection of 11 garments that she has reworked, showing you just how easy it is to refresh or drastically change any piece of clothing you come across.
Every garment in the collection can be used to create a modern capsule wardrobe that you can wear throughout the year, and Portia has included advice on how to adjust the garments in the book to make versions suitable for different times of the year.
Useful sewing techniques with clear illustrations are included at the back of the book for you to dip into whenever you need them from measuring and fitting through to garment deconstruction and construction.
This is not the “Becky home eccy” refashioning of old, or simply make-do-and-mend either. This is showing that with some time, basic sewing techniques and a dash of creative vision, a wardrobe you’ve made entirely from recycled garments and textiles can be as stylish, edgy and aspirational as anything the high street has to offer.
Everyone has their favourite items of clothing that they love because they fit them perfectly and look great. This practical guide for home dressmakers explains how to remake your wardrobe favourites without having to unpick and ruin the originals.
Discover how to create a wardrobe full of your favourite items that you know will fit perfectly and can be remade again and again in various fabrics simply by using a combination of techniques including tracing and measuring to create your own dressmaking patterns.
To get a truly accurate pattern the best way is to take the garment apart but that would destroy the original piece this instructional guide to pattern making explains a number of techniques you can use that enable you to remake without having to ruin first.
These include the Direct Measurement technique which works well for simple shapes without too much shaping or detail. Another method covered is Over Draping which is useful for complicated designs like a waterfall frill or a ruched panel, where measuring or tracing would be impossible, and the third method is the Tracing method which is a quick and easy technique suitable for lots of different styles of clothing.
Author Claire-Louise Hardie has drawn on her years of experience of working in costume departments in film and television, to create this comprehensive guide to cloning your clothes.
All of the cloning methods are explained in the Cloning School section of the book with step-by-step instructions and photography so you can follow along. Each technique is illustrated using an example garment so you can see how it works in practice.
The second part of the book, the Design School, shows you how to apply these techniques and skills to specific garments. There is a pair of trousers, a simple dress, a gathered skirt, a shirt and a camisole top. Learn which methods to use for different types of clothing and when to use a combination of different methods to get the best results.
In addition to the step-by-step instructions there is advice about choosing fabrics and which tools to use for the best results. Claire-Louise also provides ideas for adapting the designs to make new pieces for your wardrobe based on patterns created from your favourite pieces.
Number of pages ∙ 128 (Paperback)
Dimensions ∙ 253 x 201 x 21 mm
