New from Old: How to Transform and Customize Your Clothes - Softcover

This book provides inspiration and the technical know-how to customize and transform clothing to create your own unique style. Hunting out bargains in charity shops is no longer the province of art students, and more and more of us want to produce our own personalized "look" rather than turning into high street "clones". There is no easier, cheaper, or more successful way of doing this than by looking out for bargains and then revitalizing them with a few simply stitched ideas: adding braids, a corsage, revamping a pair of velvet slippers with simple embroidery. Sometimes old favourites need a new lease of life, whether by receiving a quick dip dye treatment or even a radical makeover. Divided into four chapters (Changing Colours; Changing Decoration; Changing Forms; and Changing Shapes) and supported by an eminently practical techniques section, this book will encourage you to take your wardrobe in hand and transform it into your own unique style.

Jayne Emerson is a young textile designer and embroiderer with a passion for fabrics and for design. She designs embroidered textiles on a freelance basis, and her designs have sold to major houses, such as Donna Karan, Marc Jacobs, Chanel, and Calvin Klein. She holds a Masters degree in Fashion from St Martins, London, she also used to run her own fashion company using recycled garments under the label Salvage. Jayne is the co-author, with Margaret Docherty, of Simply Felt (published autumn 04 in the USA and the UK); she is also writing a pair of books, The Impatient Patchworker and The Impatient Embroiderer (2005).