Upcycling Garment - DIY

 

This post is about a upcycling garment project that we were assigned as part of our social responsibility module. We had to change the outfit of a garment by using three Rs which are Reuse, Reduce, Recycle. This seemed like an interesting project where I had freedom to explore my fashion sense and everything I had learnt till now.

I started off with some garments which I was not using anymore for a long time for different reasons. I tried to play around with some of them, tried to create beach top out of a long T-Shirt which turned out to be decent but more importantly understood what goes behind upcycling garments, the challenges behind it to make the garment usable and not just visually appealing. I tried to make a triangle bottom with some contrasting ribbons on the alter neck. This is a beach top which signifies comfort and free flowing nature. It could be wore with shorts or skirt.

                                

Then I took up another of my husband's T-Shirt which we had decided to give away to someone. I decided to turn it into something which I can wear comfortably and is also visually appealing. I had certain ideas that I wanted to do. Tried to sketch them out for concluding on design.

ORIGINAL T-SHIRT

 IDEA SKETCHES

Then came the hard part, which was executing your own design. This step, although at a very small level, taught me the work that goes behind executing a design by different artisans. Manual effort that is put for each stitch was something I could appreciate now. It is relatively easy to sketch these ideas, to create different types of stitches in the design but next time I design something, I will definitely be more conscious about the work that would be required to execute that design even if I don't have to do it myself.

I thought the T-Shirt was a bit plain, so wanted to add some flair to the front plain part. So, I took some acrylic colours to create a print texture using colours like red, yellow and green, The colours looked a bit dull on the bright blue colour background, so i decided to add some bling to it by adding some golden beads on the border of the design. The end result was looking really appealing to me.

Now, I wanted to add some modern fashion trend to remove the old look feel and also make it more girly. So I decided to add a slit on the bottom of the T-Shirt. Initially, had thought of creating a keyhole slit but then eventually decided to cut it open and make a Side Hem Slit. Again, highlighted it using some yellow borders. After this, I gathered the shoulder fabric of one of the arms to add more charm to the garment as an option based on the situation you are wearing it for. And there I had it, the girly flairy top with some modern trend following.

Now, I could wear it with a jeans for a chic look or make it funky and tie up the bottom slit into a knot and make it a crop top and wear it with shorts. I could never imagine successfully upcycling garments from my wardrobe into something I would want to wear. This exercise taught me that almost anything is upcyclable and we need not throw away clothes after we are bored with them or are no longer suitable for us in some sense.

I will definitely try this more as my personal project and try to upcycle more of my wardrobe into something I would want to wear it outside comfortably and show off my designing skills.