Davis Brown
Most creative and easy to apply ideas to upcycle old clothes to make new outfits and sell it at a new price tag, you are at the right place. Here we will be discussing essential steps that gives a second chance and a fashion spotlight the garments. Moreover, if you want to get it done for your wardrobe, these steps would help you prevent spending more on buying new ones.
Most importantly, as per a study, 1.92 million tonnes of textiles waste is produced every year and the garment industry responsible for nearly 10% of global carbon emissions.
Therefore renewing an old garment is not only affordable, but also sustainable for our earth.
05 Steps to Upcycle Old Clothes To Make New Outfits & Sell or Personal Wardrobe:
We’ll walk you through the top 05 steps to use old clothes to make new outfits and prepare them for resale or reuse for our wardrobe.
Step 1: Cleaning to Upcycle Old Clothes To Make New Outfits:
If you are using a washing machine, which is most probable, consider using high-efficiency detergent over the regular ones. Because a low-power regular detergent compromises the machine’s cleaning and rinsing efficiency. Potentially, it will result in unpleasant odors, which can be easily detected as an old/used garment.
Most importantly, a used cloth may be delicate; therefore, opt for shorter wash cycles of your washing machine. It minimizes the wear and tear during washing. Additionally, selecting a slower spin cycle not only diminishes wrinkles on the garment but also results in your laundry looking new.
Next, when it comes to water temperature, both cold and hot water have their benefits. Cold water, obviously, saves energy and is recommended for gentle washing of fabrics. If the fabrics are delicate, we recommend using cold water as it extends their lifespan and maintains their overall fabric and stitch strength.
Whereas, we recommend using hot water for white and heavily soiled garments. Thus, we conclude that hot water is beneficial for the enhanced cleaning process, particularly for heavy and soil-laden garments such as pillow covers. Whereas cold water is good for dark, light garments which do not cause color fading.
Lastly, we reach the heat applied drying of clothes. Use high heat settings for jeans, sweatshirts, and towels. Whereas, opt for regular to medium heat settings for most of the light laundry. And low heat settings for delicate cotton, spandex, and garments prone to shrinking such as wool or linen. Thus, we recommend you follow the guidelines above to preserve the garment quality to completely upcycle old clothes to make new outfits and make them suitable for absolute resale.
Step 2: Repair and Alteration to Upcycle Old Clothes To Make New Outfits:
When you are reselling an old/used garment with tears and damages, mending with ready-made patches or easily noticed stitches can be a nightmare. There, you need to take a creative turn to transform a defect into a trend or a design. Here, we are sharing a few ideas how to sew old clothes into something new:
Decorative Stitches: Decorative stitches like arrowhead stitches or filling stitches give a creative cover over rips and tears on the clothing.
Patching and Darning: You may need to upgrade to machine darning to mend damaged fabrics. For that, you need to combine darning stitches with a patch by placing matching fabric beneath the hole. Use free-motion stitching, straight stitches, zig-zag stitches to cover the hole. This technique makes the hole nearly invisible if you use fabric of the same weight and color for repairing.
Avoid Ready-Made Patches: As we said earlier, ready-made patches are easily detectable. So it’s better to avoid using them for a more discreet and natural-looking repair.
Ornamental Patching: Apply the appliqué technique to both mend and embellish fabric. Decorative stitches secure the appliqué, resulting in an ornamental patch. While it’s more noticeable as a mending method, it allows you to mend and decorate simultaneously.
Cut and Alter to Avoid Tear: If the garment has extensive damage, you may need to alter the clothing to eliminate the tear. For instance, if a hole appears in the sleeve hem, trim the damaged section and either create a new hem or add a band or cuff to restore lost length.
Wear the Tear: Ripped jeans are the best example of intentional damage as a design choice. So, if you find the damage in the right place, turn it into a fashion demand in the market.
Thus, follow these ideas to effectively mend and even enhance your clothing items using various creative techniques, ranging from almost invisible repairs to eye-catching decorative solutions.
Step 3: Creative Upcycling:
If you can use your creativity to change the garment from one form to another based on the trend, such as turning jeans into shorts, transforming a dress into a skirt, adding patches, embellishments, and embroidery to create a new fashion.
We would highly recommend you to apply your garment redesigning skills to redesign your old garment to achieve a brand new fashionable look. This is the best way to resell an old apparel with a new tag that no one can notice.
Step 4: Trendy Styling:
Research on current fashion trends and those changes to the used garments. You can make small changes to the sleeves, add belts, replace buttons, print a logo or a design.
Moreover, you can also offer product customization services where you can print artwork, add names and numbers, and print slogans. You can use any of the printing methods like sublimation printing, DTG (Direct-to-Garment) printing, screen printing, embroidery, etc.
Step 5: Dyeing and Printing(Optional)
Dyeing and printing fabric is a complete revamp. That is to say, you are absolutely selling a new product if you dye a garment into a new look. Follow the video below to learn how to dye clothing
Final Words:
Renewing a used/old garment for resale is comparatively more profitable than outsourcing and selling a new one. You can apply your own design creativity to revamp the garment and sell it at competitive prices. This is because you are customizing the product and offering something unique to buyers that others aren’t providing.
