The Leanimal in you

Leanimal is a sustainable fashion brand designed by Leanne Marshall. I find her fashions very inspirational. She uses loads of draped fabric to form beautiful details on clothing. Leanimal has a shop at Etsy. Too bad almost all of her clothes are sold out at the moment, but I hope she will have new available soon.. Meanwhile you can check out the "sold" section and get inspired!

Attention Trashion bag ladies!

(bag made by Post Scriptum)

Are you an upcycler? As in, are you into making stuff from things that others cast away? Now is your chance to show the world your trashy treasures. The Compai ladies — Justina and Faythe Blakeney (authors of 99 Ways To Cut, Sew, Trim And Tie Your T-Shirt Into Something Special) — are working on a new book about bags made from recycled materials.

Submit a hi-res image of an original bag (or bags) that you have made from old tires, nuts and bolts, candy wrappers, seatbelts, old clothes, plastic bags, vinyl records, etc. to justina@venuszine.com. Bags can be any shape, size or style so long as they are made from recycled materials. Along with the images, send us your name, occupation, age, URL (if you have one), location and a short paragraph explaining what the bag is made of and your design philosophy.

You could be chosen to be a featured designer in Compai’s upcoming publication (to be published by Potter Craft, a division of Random House), plus win two free copies of the upcoming title. The winner also will be featured on Venuszine.com.

Deadline: August 20, 2008, at 5 p.m.
Submit to: justina@venuszine.com with "Bag Book" in the subject line.


(Lace glove bag made by Flymissy)


(sweater bag by Brenda's bag)

DIY Publishing at Blurb

You´ve propably heard about Blurb.com where you´re able to make your own books about holiday pics, wedding pics and so on. Not many crafters and artists have realized that these blurb-books can also be made to portfolios, collection catalogs or hardcover inspiration books! They make a very good addition to your Etsy shop or website shop. With the prices starting from 20 dollars they are very affordable. Check out Blurb-bookstore Crafts&Hobbies category.

Lori Stanstedt aka lorimarsha has done just this. Her new book Re:find goods - Wear. Smile. Repeat. shows her clothing reconstructions and inspiration. It makes a wonderful addition to your craft book library. See the book preview here (40 pages, published: May 13, 2008).



Here´s how she describes her book, "Our culture glorifies the new. Trendy garments with built-in obsolescence quickly lose appeal when they appear on the “what’s not” side of the “what’s hot” fashion column. So they’re relegated to the back of the closet….stuffed into a bottom drawer… and, if they’re not dumped into the trash, they eventually find their way to thrift and consignment stores where they languish under the humiliation of multiple markdowns and overpopulated racks. As every savvy recycler knows, treasure often hides between purple power suits and polyester broomstick skirts. And the thrill of finding a mustard dupioni silk blouse or a fine gauge British wool dress makes the sometimes exhaustive searches worthwhile. I am proud to say that I design all of my garments from recycled materials."

At the moment Blurb offers only 48 books on crafts and 8(!) books on recycling... I know you guys have talent to make more! You can fill your book from anything to product images, making-of-pics, tutorials, inspiration book scans and drawings or scetches as long as they do not violate any copyrights. Of course book-making requires a certain ability for lay-out design and quality pictures from your items. But as I have written about DIY photography in the past, all this can be done at home. Just use your imagination and creativity. The Blurb.com book-design program is very helpful in this. Now how long it would take for me to construct my own book from my inspiration book pages or my trashion tutorials???

RECYCLE RUNWAY book written by Nancy Judd. Book detail HERE. Check also their website.

Sandra Backlund creations

I read an article from the Swedish Elle about artist Sandra Backlund. She is a swedish fashion designer specialized in handknitted pieces with volume and organic shapes. Read the complete article here: PAGE 1 and PAGE 2. I think her Clothes Pin dress is quite amazing and it has a very scandic look to it.

Manon Gignoux´s love for wear and tear

Manon Gignoux makes clothes, accessories, jewellry and home decor from pieces of fabric. I think she has a wonderful way to combine (muted) colors and to transform an worn down fabric into something comfortable, soft and inviting.

"The origins of my work can be traced back to my last year of study at France’s Duperré School of Applied Arts when I carried out a photographic study of the clothes worn by workers in the early 20th century and explored the "traces of wear and tear" on clothes. Starting with details of a hundred or so photographs taken from books, I filled research notebooks and ended up with four themes: the "carpenter" or the traces of alteration, the "washerwoman" or the imprint of repeated movements, the "inside-out suit" or the dynamics of (de)construction, and the "woman shopkeeper" or the encounter between work clothes and everyday life and the way an object that is worn fits the body." (paragraph from Manon Gignoux website)




"I play on the relationship between clothes and object, I dress objects in order to protect them and to tell their story… damaged coverings, darned, made from accumulation and colours faded by time."

Not so BoringSidney

Meet Belle, the fab milliner from Etsy known as BoringSidney. She makes hats with that have that special wow-effect. With a BA in Apparel Design and a Minor in Costume Design, Belle has had the opportunity to design costumes for some 25 plays or musicals over the last 18 years, several ballets, independent film, and a magic show. It was in the theatre that she learned the art of millinery. With a love for the bizarre and quirky, a solid sense of humor, and a driving need to create, that she started Boring Sidney/Belle Millinery label 9 years ago.

Hats millinery; hand blocking, creating hat blocks, steaming and building buckram frames is almost a lost art, having apprenticed under a master milliner in the theatre she learned old world millinery techniques and acquire vintage hat blocks, trims, and fabrics. Her shop carries 20´s art deco, 40´s pin-up styled hats, headwraps and feather decorated pieces with haircomb fastenings that will transform any dress to movie star status.



I´m so happy Etsy finally featured her on their Featured Seller column since she is one of my favorite Etsy-crafters. Read the full interview HERE. You can find Belle´s shop from BoringSidney.etsy.com. Her designs were featured also in the Spring 2008 issue of Elle Accessories Magazine. Congrats girl!


I love the shape of this pink hat so much that I´m going to tr to do this from neckties.

Make Art not Trash (trashion links)

Art for housewifes has collected a huuuge list of artists that use trash and recycled materials for their works. The site itself is a bit confusing, but the links are great. This should keep you busy surfing the interweb for a few afternoons.

Shoe chair by Willie Cole "Made In The Philippines"

Martin Margiela Artisanal SS08 collection

Maison Martin Margiela has released their new SS08 Artisanal colection on their website. Once again I find myself gasping. And belive it or not, I have been playing with the idea of creating "pixelated" prints/images to clothing and home decor by combining different colored buttons for the past two years... I should have done it then. I´m just happy to see Margiela´s studio and I seem to share thoughts. As always I love that they tell how the garment has been made + the work hours put into it.

Scream-button-dress: Vintage buttons are embroidered on a silk chiffon to create a bit-mapped effect motif. Two rectangular pieces of silk muslin are assembled to form a dress. The front is embroidered with various buttons of mother-of-pearl, metal, plastic to draw a mouth. Dress : 25 hours

Pixelated prints from buttons:

The plastron of a vintage shirt is embroidered with various buttons in mother-of-pearl, metal and plastic, composing the drawing of an eye. T-shirt : 20 hours

Mirrorpiece jacket:

Small mirror squares are assembled as a top. These small tiles like those found on a facetted disco ball are glued on an open-back top lined in black leather. Top : 45 hours

Pleated top:

An extra large T-shirt is partially slashed in bands to create a circular motif. The new armhole is made with a series of hand-made knots. T-shirt : 19 hours

Elastic Band Jacket:

A plaiting of elastic bands creates a jacket. Various widths and qualities of elastics are plaited directly on the dummy to make a jacket. The different types of elastics brings a particular colour to each garment. T-shirt : 29 hours

Natalie "Alabama" Chanin interiors

Alabama Chanin is a sustainable label by designer Natalie Chanin. I adore her style in interior design and creating unique decor pieces. Her home textiles have some beautifull embroidery and the lamps are just pure trashion. She also has a sustainable eco-label that produces clothes and jewellry. Her "necktie-chair" is of course my favorite!



Now where could I find those gorgeous cow jaw-bones to make my own bonelamp....

Sohung Designs by Shohung Tong

Chinese Shohung Tong is a NY based designer makes reconstructed dresses from neckties and mens shirts. Love his work. Found him through Sewing with neckties. Thanks Barb!

Justina B T-shirt recon tutorial

Justina Blakeney (one of the brilliant Compai girls) has made a great tutorial on reconstructing t-shirts in Cut Out and Keep craft community. If you want to see how this shirt has been done, click to T-SHIRT RECON. Or visit Compai for more.

Knitwear reconstructed from Preloved

Preloved has done some of my alltime favorite knitwear reconstructions in the past seasons. Their website is currently "under(re)construction" :) but they should be back up this summer. Here are some inspirational pics from their previous collections. This is the way knits need to be recycled! And notice that most of the pieces are created from diagonally/vertical cut pieces. They are much easier to sew together than a random s-seam...

Playfull reconstructions at Andrea Crews Collective

Andrea Crews design collective. Playfull-kick-ass-nurave-fashion-color-explosion. Fashion does not always have to be so serious business, it can be JUST FUN... And Andrea Crews collective is just that. It is clear these people have such a laugh with re-designing clothes and styling them. Here you can find my previous post on Andrea Crews Collective.



This bag-to-hat thing is just amazing... And the masks above are just unbeliavable. The first thing I thought about was a "eco-bankrobber" but I could definately see myself wearing something like this for some trashion guerilla action performed in the early morning hours of Helsinki city streets... And finally from men´s pants to a shirt...

Fashion Reconstruction collective called Andrea Crews

Meet the Andrea Crews design collective. Creative, un-expected, fun. I love it.

"Andrea Crews's project bases on the use and the reinterpretation of the second-hand garment, it is a social, economic and ethical choice. Andrea Crews transforms tons of secondhand clothes into unique pieces, chic and trendy. Within the workshop, around the heap of clothes, the raw material, Andrea Crews settles sewing machines and creates experimental collections.Beyond a simple craze for the vintage, the concept " post-vintage " of Andrea Crews is more than ever of current events. More than a simple appropriation, she proposes a reinterpretation.

Each piece is treated one by one according to the potentiality of the clothe and the stylist desires. The results are indeed unforeseeable, strange, tempting and daring. Dipping into several sources of inspirations, Andrea Crews uses fragments of a sub-culture counting comics, mystic rastafary frescos, fanzines, scribbles, cut-up porn, electro rhythms, punk flyers … GranPa trousers are transformed into mini overalls, a rotten T-shirt into a sexy docker, a baggy sweat into a night dress…"

Quote from Andrea Crews website.

Margaux Lange handcrafted Barbie couture jewellry

I have a love-hate relationship with Barbie. It has become the symbol of dumb blondes and it reminds me of the insanity of extreme plastic surgery. If I see Barbie dolls I just want to hurt them (I know I need therapy...). On the other hand Barbie dolls have been a mirror of women´s role in society in different decades. Funny I still have not seen "President-Barbie" in the shops... In any case Barbie is an icon as much as Mickey Mouse and that just makes her fascinating.

Margaux Lange, a crafty gal from Brooklyn NY, makes jewellry from Barbie and Ken dolls. "Wearing the body, on a body" as she describes her art. Since I´m not going to NY soon, I´ll just have to pop in at her ETSY shop. I love humoristic jewellry and these are just too incredable to wear. They are beautifully executed technically and design wise. In fact I’d love to own a piece one day... Plastic fantastic!

Also this shop carrys MargauxLange:
FACÉRÈ.com

Discarded to Devine denim wedding dress

I´ve seen a few denim wedding dresses browsing through the net, but they all have looked sort of funny in light blue... Then I stumbled upon this... A natural white dress reconstruckted from old jeans and bleached to natural white.. Stunning.

See Flickr user St Vincent de Paul Society SF (San Francisco) Discarded To Divine 06 Set. This set had some amazing trashion dresses and jackets all made from reconstructing old clothes including ths denim wedding dress.





Discarded to Devine is a recycled clothing design competition hosted annually by this charity organization. Unfortunatly the 2008 entries have closed on January 31st but the designs will be displayed in various locations in the San Francisco area. They will be auctioned at the end of April.

More than 100 one-of-a-kind stunning fashions and accessories created by student and professional designers were auctioned in the Discarded to Divine 2007 event to benefit the Vincentian Help Desk, a place where the poor and homeless can “shop” for a fresh change of clothes in a safe, respectful environment, free of charge. See the event images HERE.

Creativity through a lens

Most of us have at least a pair. It can be for protecting from sun light (or paparazzi!), to be able to see further or to read or just for show if you are into the nerd-look. I´m talking of course about glasses. (image from Adventures in Trashion)

Glasses can also be used as materials for trashion creations. I came intrested in this material a while back when I realized that basically any thriftstore or secondhand shop has a box full of different sort of glasses that they are just dying to get rid off. Here are some of my specs-favorites.

Lens necklace by Maison Martin Margiela


Necklace by Elena Mary


Spectaculous artwork from Stuart Haygarth








Granny glasses curtain from PlanB

Ashley Watson recycled leather bags

Vancouver based designer Ashley Watson handcrafts her one-of-a-kind leather products using exclusively recycled material. She began designing handbags with recycled leather in early 2005, inspired by the original features of jackets purchased from charity thrift stores. Her bags have a very vintage stylish and contemporary look. In my eyes these bags (and her other accessories) look a lot better than some "it-bags" from major fashion brands... The bags used to have a previous lifes and that always fascinates me about recycled materials. In case one of my friends is reading this, please tell my husband to get me one of her bags for xmass :)

Ashley Watson Recycled Leather bags and wallets are now sold online and in stores across North America, and will soon be available in select stores in Europe. Visit her website for more info.