Tag Archives: Kirsten Lee

Sew 162 – The REfashion Revolution

We are what we repeatedly do. I’m repeatedly refashioning existing clothing to prevent them going to waste. Everyday this year, I use what I have and do what I can to demonstrate a more creative way of reusing natural fibre clothing instead of dumping them.

In so doing, I’m part of a REfashion Revolution which is inspiring thoughtful and creative reuse of existing clothing instead of buying more.

Waste not, want not, as my Great Grandma used to say – but it is astounding how wasteful our society has become in pursuit of new stuff.

The REfashion Revolution has integrity.

It is creative, autonomous and purposeful in reducing waste and exploitation – and in alignment with my personal values. Integrity is the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles – or another graphic definition I picked up via social media recently which I love is this: Integrity is choosing your thoughts and actions based on values rather than personal gain.

The REfashion Revolution is happening all around us, when we pause to consider how we can reuse clothing by chopping and changing instead of tossing out. Continue reading →

Sew 161 – Suit yourself refashion

Self-reliance is a useful characteristic in life that springs from creativity, versatility, intuition, access to raw materials, knowledge and skills.

In the office, it means you can nut out a pragmatic solution for a tricky problem. In the kitchen, it means you can pull together a feed without necessarily having all ingredients listed in a recipe. And in the clothing department, it means you can bring together disparate items and adapt them to suit yourself.

Refashioning, restyling and mending clothing using simple sewing skills means you can be self-reliant, individual and resourceful in the way you dress. Continue reading →

Sew 141 – The ripple effect

When you throw a rock in the pond, ripples emerge as a result of that action. This Sew it Again project is not exactly a rock, rather a deliberate and sustained action that is demonstrating the multitude of ways we can reclaim our wardrobes by resewing.

Over the past few decades as women relished long-denied educational and workplace opportunities, we readily outsourced our clothing requirements. Home-made was considered old-fashioned and we embraced easy (and cheap) opportunities to buy off the rack.

The more we bought into the fashion thing, the more we lost the skills and confidence to ‘do for ourselves’ thereby becoming disempowered and dependent on fashion houses and clothing supply chains.

In the same way the food revolution reclaimed the freedom, pleasure and nourishment enabled by home-cooking and baking skills, we are poised to revive home-sewing skills as part of the fashion revolution. Continue reading →