TreeHouse Society's Tips for Recycling Fashionistas

Learn how to recycle fashionably from two chicks who love vintage clothing! Buying clothing at thrift stores, vintage stores, and markets can help you on your path to becoming a high fashion eco-warrior. Vintage and recycled clothing bought and reworked to incorporate your individual style is a great way to add a flash of style to your wardrobe. Manufacturers in our industrial system remove resources, and create products that are assumed to eventually be disposed of in landfills. In the eco-fantastic book, Cradle-to-Cradle, authors William McDonough and Michael Braungart state that "Cradle-to-grave designs dominate modern manufacturing. According to some accounts, more than 90 percent of materials extracted to make durable goods in the United States become wasted immediately." Buying second-hand and vintage clothing is a great way to extend the life of great pieces of fashion. A wardrobe carefully crafted with used pieces is instantly updated with a slice of unique, hand-crafted, and era-inspired style. Crafting and altering the newly found vintage piece can be just as difficult as finding it in the first place. Check out Hilly's eco-hunting adventure for advice on making your new recycled clothes reflect your own personal style.

During a recent procrastination misfit, I grabbed my keys, a few bucks and headed out the door to my neighborhood thrift store, Urban Renewals. I was on a mission.

I made my way up and down the long isles of clothing, passing "Women's Pant's," then "Women's Shorts," then "Women's Skirts"...and that's when I spotted it -- an ugly, long floral skirt. I can't tell you why, but I felt an instant connection to it. It retrospect, it's probably because I have been glued to HBO series, Big Love, and this skirt looks like something out of Nicki's closet. It would fit in perfectly along side her other long, conservative, and quaint high-waisted skirts.

I observed the skirt more closely. It was in great condition: no missing buttons, no holes, and clean (a rarity). I held the skirt up to my body, a perfect fit. There was not turning back. So I headed to the counter to trade cash for an ugly skirt that screamed Mormon.

What I love most about this skirt is the pattern of small pastel colored flowers juxtaposed onto of a black background. The skirt brought me back to the '90s and made me think of the television series, Blossom, or the band Ace of Base. When I make clothes my own, I like to ass apiece of me into them, a sense of identification and this is exactly what I did.

I cut just over two feet (a very small child) off the bottom of the skirt. What once screamed Mormon now screamed MOR-WOMAN.

I chose to leave the edges of the skirt untamed. I loved the uneven cut and the fringed. It added contrast to the "good girl" print and texture to the thin material.

Although this skirt did not require a serious surgical transformation, the simple cut completely altered the tone of the skirt. It goes to show that there are small and easy things you can do to that can have a drastic effect.

(Pictures by: Susan Loshin)

Check out the STORE on our BLOG:

Urban Renewals
122 Brighton Ave
(between Harvard Ave & Linden St)
Allston, MA 02134

Cheers, hope that helps.

Alex & Hilly

TreeHouse Society

Comments

[QueenCeleste]

Good going girls! The skirt is adorable. I've always loved vintage clothing, though these days the upscale shops charge absurd prices for what I used to find for a song. But your post has inspired me to visit local thift shops and check Ebay for great, guilt-free finds.

Happy shopping!

[juliette23]

New clothes lose 50 to 90 percent of their value upon the first wearing.