Do you love to find unique items of clothing that nobody you know has? Do you wish there were more options on the high street? These days, there are so many sheep. People just wear what looks popular on Instagram. They go through fads. It’s boring! One thing I love about clothing is that you can use it to express your personality and what you’re all about, but you can’t do that in clothing that everybody else has. So, why not create your own? It might sound difficult, but you can have a lot of fun doing it and you’ll end up with some unique creations. It might be a little trial and error and first, but pretty soon you could be a pro at creating your own unique clothes. Here are some tips to help you get started:
Source Materials
To make your own unique clothes, you first need to source materials. There are all kinds of different places you can find materials, from markets to online wholesalers. You might want to have an idea of what you’re making first, or you might want to stock up on materials and go wild. It’s up to you! It will usually help if you know what you’re going to make so you know how much of what to buy. Make sure you pick materials you think you can work with. Don’t bite off more than you can chew in the beginning! You can also buy materials to further make your creations look unique, such as beads, gems, iron on patches, and more. If you want something that looks completely unique, try heading to vintage stores and using the materials you find there. You won’t want to pull apart a vintage gem, but if you find something that looks a little too worn, then you could make something with that. Reworked vintage items can look awesome, and you won’t find that material anywhere else!
Find Inspiration If You Need it
If you need inspiration, there are plenty of tutorials online you can work with. You can then tweak what they’ve done to suit you and make something totally brand new. You can learn pretty much everything you need to know for free online, no need to pay lots of money to do a course. After just a few minutes of searching online for inspo, you should have a ton of ideas. It won’t be long before you’re coming up with your own ideas and people are asking you for advice.
Research the Best Equipment to Help You
If you’re going to start creating your own clothes, having equipment to help you is a good idea. Some people might be able to do it with nothing but a pair of scissors, a needle, and some thread. That being said, most people like to buy a sewing machine to help them. You can read a Quilter’s review alongside other reviews to help you decide what the best machine for you is. You want one you can work with easily. That probably doesn’t mean buying the fastest model you can get your hands on. As well as a sewing machine, you’ll need different threads, a good pair of scissors, and a tape measure. You can find a list of things you need here.
Start Small
Don’t try to make something too complicated right away. It might not look that complicated on paper, but you want to prove to yourself you can make something simple before you jump into the deep end. As you get more confident with the methods and your equipment, you can create larger items. Being confident in your abilities is great, but you don’t want to ruin an expensive piece of material when you’re just starting out. There are usually ways you can start over if you really mess it up, but you still need to be careful.
Practice
Practice really does make perfect! There are a bunch of different methods and techniques, so try them out and see what you prefer. You might not be very good at first, but that doesn’t mean you’ll always be that way. Everybody has to start somewhere.
Find Clothing Patterns
You can find clothing patterns that will make it easier for you to work with. With clothing patterns, you’ll learn how to gauge the amount of material you need, as well as how to cut your pieces so they fit together properly. You don’t always need a pattern, but for the novice clothing maker they can help. You can find some of them for free, but you might have to pay for some of them. You’ll still save money making something yourself though, so don’t be put off!
Rework Your Own Clothes
Another option you have is reworking your own clothes. Take a look in your wardrobe and have a look at things that you just don’t wear anymore. You can use these for practice. You never know, you might create something amazing with them! You can do simple things like cutting the sleeves off and cropping the length, or you can take the material you’ve got and transform it into something completely different. You can pretty much create any look you like with a pair of scissors. You can cut jeans into shorts, long tops into crops. You can take a simple t-shirt and make it pretty much any style you like! Just make sure you practice with something you don’t really care about first, just incase. Again, there are lots of YouTube tutorials. You can use dye to create different patterns too. You could take your whole wardrobe and make it look totally different, in theory!
See, creating your own unique clothes can be loads of fun. You have all kinds of options, so start exploring them and see what kinds of things you can make. The only limit is your imagination! If you’ve tried any of these tips, let me know how they’ve worked for you. Leave your thoughts and ideas below – I’d love to hear them! Thanks for reading.