How many of you have an old dress or something that you’ve been keeping in your closet without wearing for literally five or six years? It’s just been collecting dust ’cause your style has changed, or you realized it didn’t look that good on you, or it simply doesn’t fit anymore. But for whatever reason, you just can’t bear to give it up!
Well, I had one such a vintage-inspired dress that I hadn’t worn in literally 7 or 8 years! It was just sitting in my closet for years with some vague plan to alter it someday. There was nothing wrong with it per se. It still fit fine, and I love a good vintage-inspired number. I think it just became a little bit too costume-y for me over the years. Like I was making more of a statement than I wanted. This is what the dress looked like:
Cute dress, right? But I found myself never wearing it, without ever forgetting how unique and special it is, therefore being unable to declutter it.
Well, it only took me 7 or 8 years to take a pair of scissors to it and turn it into a much more wearable halter top. It doesn’t lose that retro feel, but it became much less of a costume. Not every “alteration” will be this simple, but it was just a matter of removing the zipper in the back and cutting the top portion off underneath the trim at the waist. I could have added a new zipper all the way down the back, but I ended up stitching the back closed.
Et voila! Now I have a super cute, retro-inspired halter top that I feel much more comfortable wearing on an everyday basis. And I still have the skirt portion that I can someday turn into its own skirt or even shorts, so I can mix and match my retro pieces!
DIY top (from an old Modcloth dress) / old shorts / old wedges / gravitypope sunnies
Even though I never throw away my clothes (I always donate them), it always feels so wasteful to hold onto things you never use. That’s why I’m always ruthlessly decluttering! So it feels pretty good to be able to give your old clothes new life.
Do you ever alter or recycle your old clothes to get some new use out of them?
xoxo
