Op-shopping

So, this is one of the most awesome blogs on the intranets: http://www.adventuresindressmaking.com/

The powers of this girl. I wish I could sew like her. Some of those dresses she makes look to be so high quality. Literally, better than the quality of half the stuff you find in the shops these days (well, the cheapo shops anyway...). My favourite one was when she made a sequin mini-dress out of a TOP. A top, friends. A top. How does one make a dress out of a top? You should probably ask this ^ girl. Not even a tunic top, a normal length top. Sure, it had those big, flappy sleeves but seriously. A whole dress out of one top. Have I talked too much about this top now?

I love sewing and refashioning because it lets me wear stuff I had given up on, it lets me make things fit my body better and it lets me make stuff that I actually want to wear (case in point: the bajillion half-cardigans I made last summer). I went op-shopping with Little Mishelle around that time. I was really pumped about it because I wanted to find some stuff to refashion but I just wasn't feeling it when I got there. It might have been because it was around 40 degrees and foul. But I also felt like I only wanted to buy stuff if it was really high quality (it sounds a bit roundabout but I'll explain myself later). I also probably had really high expectations (from reading so many vintage and refashion blogs...) which were not met (too many granny pants).

So, my reason for only wanting to buy high quality stuff secondhand is this: buying basics and buying poor quality shit is so cheap when buying it new. In fact, some of the stuff I could probably get at the same price or maybe even cheaper buying it new rather than secondhand. So I would only consider buying something secondhand if it was really unique, something that really suited my taste and if it was a high quality garment. I don't want to get into the whole moral/ethical thing about sweatshop vs. charity store but I just wanted to explain my reasoning.

J