New From Old: How to Transform and Customize Your Clothes

by Jayne Emerson

The inspiration and the skills to create fabulous, personalized clothing. Any woman can transform and customize the clothes already in her closet, making them new, hip and utterly de rigueur . Drawing on technical skills and extensive experience designing for top fashion houses, Jayne Emerson offers inspiration to women who prefer personality in their fashion. Using bargain buys or closet orphans, women of any age can create updated designs by, for example, adding braid, over-dyeing a shirt or converting a sweater into a bolero. In addition to the specific 30 projects described in detail, the author reviews the necessary sewing fundamentals and provides expert guidance Throughout the book there are "Before You Start" sidebars, inspirational photographs, illustrated instructions and an eminently practical techniques section. When vintage has become too expensive and secondhand looks outdated, a new wardrobe can be created using New from Old .

Genres: Sewing, Crafts, Fashion, Nonfiction

144 pages, Paperback

First published April 18, 2006

Reviews

[Kelly (Maybedog) · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. This is a great as an idea book for different techniques you can use to modify clothing. Some of the instructions are very good and others are almost nonexistent. There aren't any projects per se, just examples of what the author has done and suggestions on how to recreate the idea.

The sections are changing color, adding decoration, changing form, making things and useful stuff. The latter two are the general instructions.

I've seen most of it before, but not in the same book, and I like the author's style.

3.5 stars rounded up because I'm actually considering getting it, although I probably won't.

[Ligaya · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nothing new to learn from here, at least for me, but it was nice to have so many creative ideas packaged together. I would have loved to see even more variations on the main projects. There's not a lot of instruction, and if you need hand-holding to DIY, then this isn't the book for you. I liked the idea of cutting a seam of your turtleneck and then embellishing the cut end, and, along the same lines, changing a crew neck to a V-neck and "embroidering" the newly cut edge.

[Lois · Rating 3 out of 5]

wonderful ideas, great photos. start with clothes and then kick it up a notch with dye, add hand stitching on a lapel, add buttons, a contrast border at the hem of a skirt, add pin tucks to a shirt, change a round neck to a v, or start with a round tablecloth to make a circle skirt. Jayne Emerson has vision & the moxie to pull it off. dye a cotton eyelet petticoat orange to peek out from beneath a full brown linen skirt. go ahead, I dare you.

[Cara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Checked out this book from the library and skimmed through it. Lots of great ideas! Seems like it's more tuned towards people who sew on the regular. The instructions were fine for me but I imagine someone who has no idea when it comes to sewing would be a little overwhelmed on the how-to's. Definitely gave me an oomph of motivation to refashion some of my clothes, shoes, and jewelry, though - and even underwear! (who would have thought to do that? this book's author!)

[E.A. · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I enjoyed the whimsical ideas from this book, many of the transformations are simply embellishments to pants, tops and shoes, such as adding trims, flowers and buttons. For a 20-something year old, I only found one project that I might try, which is sewing in a ribbon collar to an old sweater.

[Annette McIntyre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some wonderful ideas for how to revamp old or boring clothes into something new and exciting.