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Fashion goes crazy for customisation

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LSS WoW Factor

By Ellen Kelly, Fashion Editor

International & Travel

Customisation celebration at FACT; YouTube: Customise your own jeans tutorial

(Pictures by Ellen Kelly)

Website team

The fashion-conscious of Liverpool are getting scissor-happy and revamping their wardrobes in a bid to save the environment and the pennies this summer.

As the purse strings tighten and the new dress of your dreams is no longer an option, fashionistas across the country are shunning the throwaway phenomenon in favour of old-fashioned thriftiness. And if the success of Wood Street’s FACT’s Pimp Your Party Frock event is anything to go by, the customising bug is soon to be spreading across the city like wildfire.

Over the next month, the playhouse is set to become an Aladdin’s cave of clothes, shoes and accessories there for the taking, in a series of events forming part of the centre’s Climate for Change programme.

In keeping with the programme’s aim of examining the crises currently affecting the planet, FACT plays host to a string of workshops and events celebrating sustainable fashion and customisation, teaching our inner shopaholic a thing or two about strategic spending in the process.

The programme launched this month with the Pimp Your Party Frock workshop, where the public were encouraged to bring along old dresses to be transformed into funky new garments, and designers were on hand to turn old materials into unique head gear and accessories.

JMU law student Kate Cronin was amongst the style conscious in attendance, and just one of many who went away with an outfit that looked as good as new.

“It’s a brilliant idea – I’ve got loads of old dresses that are just sitting in my wardrobe, but I’ve never known what to do with them,” she said, showing off a shortened black dress that had been finished off with a waist belt and corsage.

“It was really helpful to have people who knew what they were doing there. I feel like I’ve been shopping!”

The workshop, which was such a roaring success that organisers are already negotiating plans for the next one, was the first in a series of events set to take place at FACT until the end of May. This includes fashion auctions and clothes swapping parties, all in the name of reducing our carbon footprints.

“This has been a huge success in showing people that they don’t need to go out and buy something new for every night out,” explained designer Alison Bailey-Smith, who was on hand to help pimp those party frocks.

“For less than a fiver you can pick up a huge selection of ribbons, buttons, badges and flowers, so it’s even cheaper than Primark these days. It’s important that we put a stop to fast, throwaway fashion.”

So don’t just chuck stuff to the back of your wardrobe – organisers are encouraging the public to recycle that dress that there are just too many photos of you wearing on Facebook, or the killer heels you really thought you could endure. Your trash could well be somebody else’s treasure.