Melted plastic bags styled with lego bowties

Make your t-shirt a changing canvas for your Trashion Plastic Artwork! 10 minute fun with cutting plastic bags and melting them to t-shirts. This technique is not permanent. The plastic will stay on a few uses and should be removed before washing the garment (it will come off in the washing machine). Check out my tutorial on Fusing plastic bags to t-shirts and knitwear. This will look great with my lego-bowties! I´m planning to make a few of these bowties for sale in my Etsy shop.

Yes, the zipper necklace is unisex.

Unisex, what an outdated word. But unfortunately it´s the only one I have do descride that something suits both genders. Soo, my zipper necklaces are unisex. I didn´t think they were until a photographer (guy) friend of mine saw my necklace, tired it on and wanted his own. Of cource I had to make him one. He makes it look good. Susie Bubble, a London girl whom I recently made one necklace to, noticed this also when his boyfriend tried it on. Sorry Susie, it seems this piece has to be shared :) I love the way it looks with guy-cardigan though! I might have to try it myself...

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)

Shopping indie fashions online at Smashing Darling

Etsy is a great site for handmade goods, but I unfortunately it does not offer a quality range of goods in clothes. Smashing Darling is the perfect site when shopping for a unique dress or other DIY/indie fashions online. All of the goods fetured on the site are for sale. It´s like "net-a-porter" of indie labels! Here are some of my favorites.

The 615 Project Fiona dress.


Laura Dawson Gallerist jacket.


Ena Daro Couture plaid couture dress.


Kahri Sweetheart Belted Circle Dress.


Angela Johnson T-shirt Ballgown

FadMashion emerging designer network

FadMashion is a new site for designers who want their works and brand noticed. “At FadMashion we make it easier for retailers to find fresh, quality talent in a marketplace overrun by outdated, scattered resources and we make it easier for designers to present their wares through our streamlined profile management interface. It has never been easier.“ I found loads of inspirational new talents with just an hour surfing. The site is still in Beta - that promises to solve the problem that designers and retailers face. The site rquires "fashion enthusiasts" to sign in to view designer details and collection images.

Dimitri Scheblanov fashions. Great look to re-fashion old tees and other clothes with a textile pen for a graphic and childlike artsy (unisex) look. I hope my local craft shops carry textile pens also in different colors so I can do this kind of work in the full rainbow spectrum! This kind of refashioning can be done quickly and in one evening. Definately something I plan to get done this fall when it rains outside :)





Octopi NYC. I love the cuts and material combinations in their FW08 collection.




Found via DIY City Mag blog.

ITS#SEVEN fashion design competition winners

This years International Talent Support competition ITS#SEVEN winners have been announced. This year Finnish Heikki Salonen grabbed the Diesel Award (50 000€) with his graduate collection. Congratulations! There were many zippers seen in the winning collections and no wonder because YKK was one of the event sponsors. See all the winners and their collection images HERE. I recommend clicking to the high-res images so you can see the details better. All of these collections are filled with stunning details. There´s also plenty of event photos available about the show and all the other desgners and collections in the competition.

FASHION COLLECTION OF THE YEAR - David Steinhorst. Zippers galore. Click to the high-res images for a closer look at the zipperwork.





DIESEL AWARD - Heikki Salonen. I loved the cropped unisex suit jacket, patched pants, blanket jacket and shoulder pearl beading.





MARIA LUISA AWARD - Alithia Spuri Zampetti. Stunning paper sculpture clothing.




Accessories Collection of the Year - Valentim Quaresma Unbeliavable steampunk / cyberpunk inspired metal scrap bodyjewelry collection.




YKK Award - Benjamin Shun Lai Ng. Very clever detailing and design ideas on mens footwear.

DIY tutorial: Marc by Marc Jacobs Lego Belt

I´ve done stuff from legos in the past but doing a lego belt buckle?? I´ve tried to figure out the fastening since I saw these in Marc By Marc Jacobs SS08 summer collection. Then I was doing some google searches this evening for something complitely different and stumbled upon Morgan´s lego-belt tutorial. How simple solution! I mean it is always like that isn´t it? Simple just works! Great job girl! Now the only question is how will a make this work for a belt buckle for guys??

More fab bags from recycled leather

I adore worn down secondhand leather and bags made from recycled or repurposed leather clothes. You just can´t beat vintage leather. My all time favorite bags designer in the sustainable fashion scene is Ashley Watson but recently I have also found other great designers and bag makers!


BAGGAGE recycled leather bags from Canada.


Recycled leather bags available at Amoosi.


Matières à réflexion bags by French designers Laetitia Azpiroz and Cyrille Railliet. Also check out their blog. Found via TheCoveted fashion blog.


Red leather bag sewn from a thrifted leather jacket. Made by a fellow Finn Jaana-Mari.


Recycled leather goods from thecraftydevils.etsy.com.



Charlott Vasberg inspires me with her bag designs. The Twiste bag from 2005 still looks new and fresh (zippers yey!).

Recycled belt design by Inghua Ting

TING is a small company that produces luxury products to sustainable, ethical principles. Inghua Ting established the company in 2000. Following her graduation from the Royal College of Art, Inghua worked in Japan developing innovative, futuristic fabrics. However, working at the forefront of fabric technology led her to considering sustainable issues, and the challenge of designing and producing a desirable, luxury product from recycled materials. Inspired by old leather belts, reclaimed seat belts, old braces, vintage leather saddles, salvaged fabrics and tie silks.

Car seatbelt cushion and vintage belt floormat, via Available at Branch Home


Ting produces three main collections: a range of luxury leather bags, belts and wallets; home and interior accessories and Orange Label, a range of bags made from seat belts. Belts, Bags, Wallets are crafted from vegetable tanned leathers and vintage leather belts. They are lined with bright vintage fabrics, tie silks and corduroys and have belt buckle fastenings.



Ting shoulderbag and coinpouch available from EcoBTQ.


Ting belt camera bag available from Ecocentric.

Trashion fascinators and flapper hats from neckties

I´ve been obsessed lately about fascinators and flapper hats. You know, those artistic looking brooch-type-fabric-thingies girls wear on their heads to parties. Apparently it is a trendry thing to rave about since StyleBubble is writing about this as well. Thelma Design has inspired me to start doing my own.




I´ve had a huge box full of neckties just waiting for a project like this so here I go! Here´s a few pictures of the first tie-fascinator versions I sewed yesteday. See my Tie-feather tutorial to see what I have done to the ties before rolling and handsewing them together.

New tutorial on Cut Out and Keep community - Pressing neckties

Many have asked me how I did my tie-dress. Here is a tutorial on what happened to the secondhand neckties before I pinned into shape on the dummy and formed my dress top. It does not matter if the ties are of different widths or they are slightly dirty. You will not notice this after they have been scrunched and pressed.



Check out all my trashion tutorials on Cut Out and Keep crafts community. More pictures can be found from my Flickr "Tie feathers"-set.

Jean-Charles de Castelbajac

French fashion designer veteran Jean Charles De Castelbajac ("JC/DC" to friends) is known for his childlike basic-colored creations inspired by sports, pop-art, logos and animation caracters and other cultural icons. He loves wool, felt and sequins and a teddybear apphears in every collection - it´s his trademark. Castelbajac has a way to present humoristic details in his creations. One of his most known pieces is the teddybear-jacket and pants that Red Hot Chilli Peppers member Flea worn on one of their music videos in the mid 90´s.



For a few years he did not show any collections, but I´m happy to see he´s back! His olympic games inspired SS2008 collection had some amazing jewellry made from legos (check also collection details).





His collection images can be found from Elle.com Runway shows (search Castelbajac) and Firstview.com. Perfect inspiration if you´re into fabric printing, appliques, hats or making jewellry from toys. So get your legos and stuffed animals and go create some rad fashion pieces with smilies!!

Zipper collar

These zipper collars seem to have become my signature trashion thing. Here is my latest. I made it for my dear friend who took this lovely picture of it. This collar has been reconstructed from 12 metal jacket zippers. It took 3 hours to pin these onto the mannequin and 7 to sew them together by hand. I´m not a very fast seamstress... Check out my ZIPPER COLLARS SET for more pics. If you´re lucky you might be able to see this live in New York in a few weeks! My friend who I made this collar for is going to be there in the beginning of April.

Photograph: Mikko Rasila
Model: Maryam R. / ModelBoom
Hair & Makeup: Muru

I cannot take full credit for the original design since Comme Des Garçons (SS05 collection) was the first designer behind this kind of zipper-use. See them from my inspiration books HERE and HERE.

My work is originally meant to inspire others to start crafting and creating things for them selves, so if someone sees my work and copies it, I´m just happy. But, with this technique it´s a bit difficult to make the collalrs exactly alike... That´s the beauty in crafting and DIY. 100% copying is impossible :)

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