Revamp Your Clothes – Make a Fashion Statement

Don’t toss them out – reuse and revamp your old clothes

Revamping old clothes into new styles, uses, and crafts is not something new. Quilters in the 19^th century were adept at making use of worn out dresses, aprons, blouses, suits, coats – well any item of clothing for that matter. Until the mid-20^th century it was a thrifty habit to remake old clothes into new. A good wool coat for a woman could easily be recut and restitched into an adorable little girl’s jacket. The extra bits of material could make a matching hat and muff. A man’s suit could be resized to fit a little boy for special occasions.

In the hippie era, one of the most common sights (after jeans) was skirts made from slicing up the seams of jeans and sewing in a triangular insert of brightly patterned material that had the point of the triangle at the crotch and expanded down to the knees or ankles, or somewhere in between.

That was then. What about now?

Look in your closet and assess what you have. There are some classic outfits that can be dressed up or down with jewelry and those are fine just as they are. But what about the other 90 percent of your outfits?

One of the saddest sights in a closet is a gorgeous outfit that is dated by a style that was so hot at the time that it was impossible to resist buying. To be completely dramatic about the kind of style that shows its age, think about those big shoulder pads from long-gone days. There is a real fashion point to be made with the concept of shoulder pads.

Shoulder pad fashions first appeared in 1931. One of the top fashion designers of that era,  Elsa Schiaparelli, showed her latest line of clothing with big shoulder pads. But that was not the end of the fashion. Older people will remember Joan Crawford with her huge shoulders. Others might remember the television show, Dynasty, with Krystal Carrington’s equally big shoulders. The fashion point here is that styles come and go in. What was old can be new again.

Still not convinced.  Think about skinny leg jeans and bell bottom jeans. One year you are a fashion plate in bell bottoms, the next year, you are hopelessly outdated.

In your closet tour, look for those items that were once the hottest styles imaginable. Set them aside for now. They might come back. Retro can be incredibly fashionable.

Now take a look at the rest of the clothes in your closet. Here are some easy changes to make them unique and instantly wearable.

Jeans, skirts, and slacks can be updated by changing their lines into current styles by changing their hems, pockets, and lines.

• Add pockets  or remove them depending on the current fashion


• Change the side hems to make them straighter or add gusset in matching or contrasting material to wider them


• Shorten the hems or add matching or contrasting material to lengthen them.

Blouses can be modified by simple measures such as changing buttons, replacing buttons with zippers (or vice versa), or changing the sleeve style.

• Remove the sleeves and make them into vests

Dresses are special and can be modified in the same manner as jeans, skirts, slacks, and blouses. Other great modification for dresses include:

• Shortening them


• Cutting them off at the waist level to make a blouse or jacket


• Cutting off the top and turning the bottom into a skirt.

There are general modifications that can turn anything into a current item. For instance, if the item is too old – or even worse – no longer fits at all, there are a couple of changes you can make to keep its memory fresh for you while making it useful.

• If there are several items that can no longer be modified for wear and the material can be used together, make a patchwork bag for yourself. Use the buttons as decoration.


• Cut off appealing decorative aspects such as an appliquéd design, pockets, or trim and use these pieces on another garment.

As a last resort, get your friends to go through the same process and then get together and have a swap meet. Trade your Krystal Carrington blouse that no longer fits for another style that fits or that can be transformed into a brand new item of clothing.

There are two major benefits from making new outfits out of old one. One is that you save money. The other is that you will have a unique wardrobe and your own style and that’s a lot better than seeing others wearing the same thing.