So I’ve just had a big birthday and one of my favorite gifts, courtesy of my mothers ‘man’ ( it feels strange calling him her ‘Boyfriend’ after nearly 20 years!), is a very worn denim jacket – with a disintegrated collar and a softness that only comes with age. The last time he gave me a denim jacket was in 2009, that one got transformed by the very first pattern I ever cut (see below ).
The question is what to do this time?
Well here’s a little inspiration from the wonderful Alex Noble (Designer/Artist creator of many of Lady Gagas best known outfits ), at MTV’s Push Helsinki Alex Noble ran a ‘Style Workshop’ where the students upcycled denim to create wonderful new creations: Click to Watch the Video.
Helsinki Design Week 2014
alongside the inspiring Alex Noble I have started a Pinterest board to collect some ideas:
‘Denim, Denim & more Denim!!!’.
On a slightly different tangent but continuing the denim theme, my wonderful Brother bought me a fantastic book on sustainability in the fashion industry:
Clothing Poverty: The Hidden World of Fast Fashion and Second-hand Clothes
Through the life span of a pair of jeans, the book tells the story from the beginning in the cotton field & design room to the second stages of life being sold on in the Mozambique markets.
I’ve started & yet to finish the book but so far it’s proving to be a very interesting read.
On the same subject there was a fantastic programme on BBC2 as part of the This World series, presented by Ade Adepitan ‘The Secret Lives of Clothes’ followed our second-hand clothing over-sees to see what happens next:
The.Secret.Life.of.Your.Clothes
So before you get rid of that old ripped pair of jeans maybe they could have a life in-between you and the second hand clothing industry.