What would be your reason to sew your own clothes?
Asking you this question, I am honestly interested, what would be your reason to do so even if you don’t. And what is it if you do so?
I have many reasons why I wanted to sew my on garments for ages. Why I started and why I keep doing it.
One part of it is, that there are certain clothes that I can’t find second hand.
To be honest I have no idea how I started to go buying my clothes rather in second hand shops and flea markets, than in fast fashion stores.
Maybe I was lucky enough to have grown up around it. Maybe my misunderstanding for fast fashion and not being able to accept and support such a destructive industry was leading me in this direction.
In any case my last shopping trip at the big names probably dates more than ten years ago, easy.
Nevertheless, there is certain items that are hard if not impossible to get second hand.
Lingerie, Leggings, Socks…
Eighter because it feels a bit to intimate to share it with a previous owner, or because it is a piece of clothing that you would just use up over time. In that case before you could pass it onto someone else by bringing it to a thrift store the garment would fall apart.
That’s what happens to leggings in my experience.
Ofcourse there isn’t only seconhand options. I could also just buy in more sustainable places.
I tried so.
And it left me completely overwhelmed by all the choices of the internet. Discurraged by high shipping prices and ugly patterns I put the project aside. No sustainable leggings-shopping on the internet for me.
What is left?
Making them myself.
And I do so for a while now. In fact, for so long, that the first ones I made are starting to have some holes in a lot and very inconvenient places.
It was time to make some new ones.
I still had some fabric in my storage. Added some more. Brown, because we are working on a more forest suited colour palette for my wardrobe:)
...leopard
...black and white kind of marble
...and the brown/gold
So, I spent one afternoon sewing three pair of leggings at once.
In those moments I also like to ask myself the questions what is more worth to me. Spending one afternoon sewing leggings or working a job for the amount I have to, for being able to afford them in a shop.
Answer is definitely sewing for a whole afternoon.
Even though I was completely done with all my patience in the end.
The most exciting part of this whole project lays still Infront of me.
After I had finished those three Leggings I was thinking of what I was to do with the broken ones in my wardrobe.
I get weirdly excited whenever I get an excuse to get rid of some of my stuff. Makes me feel like I can breathe better again. In that matter my first thought was to throw away the old ones and just replace them whit the ones I just made.
Hold on wouldn’t that interfere with my whole approach to fashion, and that rubbish doesn’t have to get thrown away straight away. But could be reused instead?
Certainly.
So, I had a better idea. Why not reuse and upcycle the leggings I made months ago? Turn them into a pair of trousers or a top?
…now that’s where the really exciting part starts to me. Figuring out what I can make from three outlived Leggings, that I made myself. Not stopping the cycle.
Reusing.
Upcycling.
And with a lot of ideas about it, I went off in the new fallen snow. Wandering the forest disguised as a snow leopard.
Thank you all to stop by once more! Have a lovely week!
(all photos are mine taken by me)