… Or what £11 in thrift shop buys and the celebrities’ choice of broderie-trimmed brilliance have in common.

But first, a bit of colourful language:

“This stuff? Okay, you think this has nothing to do with you? You…select that lumpy blue sweater…because you’re trying to tell the world you take yourself too seriously to care what you put on your back, but…that sweater is not just blue. It’s not turquoise, it’s not lapis, it’s actually ceruleo. You’re also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002 Oscar de le Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns, then it was Yves Saint Laurent who showed cerulean military jackets… and then cerulean showed up in the collections of eight different designers, then filtered through department stores and trickled down into some tragic Casual Corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs… It’s sort of comical how you think you’ve made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you are wearing a sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room.”

Those were the fictional words of Wintour-lite editrix, Miranda Priestly, at the helm of the also fictional Runway magazine, and the infamous protagonist of the 2006 film, The Devil Wears Prada. Wasn’t it big of her? Whoever said the fashion industry was elitist? It may be a widely-held – if antiquated – view that the high street owes all of its inspiration to the top drawer, and understandable as to why such a figure might adopt the most patronising possible stance to fight couture’s corner. However, we, from the convenience of our own homes – and, of course, computers – know the trickle-down theory to be less of a universal trend and more a single concentrated facet of the rag trade as a whole. Fashion takes as much of its influence from the ivory tower of the elite as it does from the streets. In 2006, Ron Frasch, the vice chairman and chief merchant of sales at Saks Fifth Avenue cited California – rather than New York – as a fashion inspiration capital, and named Chloé, Stella McCartney and Balenciaga as the most influential designers.

Arguably, I’m shooting myself in the (home-painted D.I.Y.) Louboutins quoting that film at all if, as intended, I am to assert myself as any kind of authority on fashion. 2002? What do you mean it was more than 5 minutes ago? Rewind ten years and Oscar de la Renta, as it happened, was most definitely not  in the blue then opting, instead, for swathes of fur and intricate folk-inspired embellishment in his Russian Cossack hats and coats, respectively. Yves Saint Laurent, meanwhile, was to herald his retirement with a retrospective show courtesy of Tom Ford that would prove a welcome distraction from my art, German and French A-level, as far as I was concerned (Heavens! Did I just admit my age!?) Not a military blue coat in sight. But then, if it is Parisian couture dabbling in military coats with heavenly shades of sky blue we’re talking about, then John Galliano was definitely your man, with this oversized oeuvre:

And my on-season point is? A propos of this broderie-chequered playsuit from this year’s Spring collection by Louis Vuitton, as seen on many celebrities, including Scarlett Johansson and Alexa Chung:

Its shade, like a clear springtime sky, sat comfortably among a host of pastel tones, sheer fabrics and graphic broderie Anglaise. It may have been a shift of paradigm in terms of general colour palettes from the previously mentioned example but the pale colour was definitely back in season. Is the couture conspiracy theorist in me getting unnecessarily excited at both designers concerned happening to be Paris-based? Perhaps, since John Galliano, himself has said “creativity has no nationality”(…. and then something bigoted as well, but we won’t go there!) And if we are going on the glib assumption of fashion moving in cycles or permutations of history repeating themselves, I found it fitting (and satisfying) that some seemingly forsaken charity shop clothes could so accurately echo a key colour of the present season. Was it a question of trends and timing or of the bigger picture of fashion being a more complex web of interdependent influences, none of which could possibly be too high up or low down not to matter? Whoever out of these proverbial chickens and eggs  is responsible, you definitely can’t argue with getting the look accurately with an £11.15 charity shop price tag. That is all!

You will need…

A sky blue/ light blue/ cerulean, dahling jumper £3.95

A white collared shirt (and I’m not being professionally snobbish – ahem, terrible joke, I do apologise!) £3.25

I also used a second-hand jersey top with broderie detailing, £3.95

Lace Trims: Mine included:

1x length of 6cm wide scalloped broderie Anglaise trim at £1.98 with postage and packing

1x  10m length of white lace trim at £5.10 with postage and packing - both from Ebay

White thread

Soft interfacing

30cm of white organza

Pattern paper

Patternmaster or graded setsquare

Fabric scissors

Paper scissors

Clutch pencil (I find a black gel pen also helps)

Sewing machine 

Pins

Total cost (clothes, trims and materials)

£20

Difficulty

Quite hard

Rest assured, I’ve attempted more challenging projects in my Chic Cheat career but this is a fiddly one and, it turns out, not to be underestimated.

Time: 

A bit of a foggy estimation, this one but you’re looking at about:

15-20 hours

And this, my friends, is how it’s done…

Some inspiring news for you, dear readers and an exciting new milestone for me here at Chic Cheat. This latest entry is being brought to you in the form of a guest blog takeover at independent online magazine LYYB. Click here to find out how to replicate Nina Ricci’s spring 2012 blossom wedge sandals  - and enjoy!

Okay, so, just to add some variety to my creative palate and to try something new with the – I fancy – delectable flavour of this blog, here’s a what-I-wore-type entry, as an experimental direction. It was inspired by being so, dare I say, chuffed with the outcome of my last entry that I thought I’d let all you wonderful, attentive readers know how I’ve been wearing it of late, with the following photo. I added to the on-trend fifties femininity with a pair of high-waisted shorts, which subtly echoed the quirky garnish of the chillies with a small fan print, a brown vintage leather belt, a multi coloured glittery feather necklace for a spicy touch of sparkle and black glitter ankle boots, which, incidentally had also seen days of relegation to my local charity shop before acquiring a new black glittery identity by the work of my own fair hands. Still, enough about me and more of my sartorial doings. Do, please, enjoy!

I

If it were too stultifying and obvious a statement that history has a tendency to repeat itself, in fashion’s case, to a notoriously great degree, then consider this: Casting aside financial  and logistical considerations, the thankfully up-and-coming D.I.Y. fashion area is currently starting to put its foot firmly down in the official trendy camp, but this hasn’t been the first time. Rewind to the early seventies – when, yes, we indeed rewound, when necessary, because the prospects of navigating and skipping tracks in the digital way we now know and love were mere glints in the seductive eyes of technology – when fashion also met with craft, in an exotic affair with the bohemian artistry of Zandra Rhodes, Ossie Clark and Celia Birtwell, as well as countless other hippy clothing boutiques in San Francisco. This patterned, eclectic look would shape and herald the start of a new fashion decade, with even mainstream designers, such as Oscar De La Renta getting creatively involved, as with this coat from 1970:

Decorative D.I.Y. chic might take a more organic, ground-level form now but that, in itself, is part of fashion’s mysterious and beautiful paradox of being able to seemingly regurgitate a trend while reinventing it with a fresh, more contemporary approach. Okay, verbose navel-gazing over, let me put it another way: If, like me, you went through the mill of an art school education you will, at least once, have been told the oh-so-riveting story of post modernism, which includes the notion that new trends can no longer be created with new ideas since new ideas are no longer possible (their words not mine, natch) however, combining them with other old ideas and taking a new approach are the ways in which new movements, or in this case trends, are created. Of late, we’ve seen a surge of sixties-inspired sartorial styles, revisited the femininity of fifties-style fit-and-flare and sat through the suspiciously-derivative semiotics of a certain Lizzie Grant…

…or Lana Del Rey as she’s better known, a singer and self-confessed “gangsta Nancy Sinatra” currently hijacking the attention of millions via YouTube to let us known she’s Born To Die.

Her name? A fusion of forties Hollywood star, Lana Turner and the iconic-in-an-angular-sort-of-a-way Ford Del Rey car. The Nancy Sinatra comparison has been evident in many of her magazine photoshoots, as well as the VHS-quality visuals of her music video for “Video Games” so what’s in a name? Well, pondering the supposed Ford allusion, wasn’t it Henry Ford who famously said “Whether you think you can or think you can’t you are right”? In which case, if I wanted to be truly mean, I’d express my doubt on such logic vis-a-vis Ms Grant/ Del Rey’s ability to sing live, going on THAT infamous Saturday Night Live performance, but on a less catty note, I found the photo below another anomaly from her sultry, Sinatra-inspired image and classic old-style Hollywood femininity. The chillies on this fabulous Dolce & Gabbana dress are surely less Lana Turner and more Carmen Miranda.

Needless to say, it hasn’t stopped me from copying the look in this entry, with their spicy offering being so very hot for this summer season – only this time I chose to replicate the crop top version, as they are set to be a wardrobe staple as soon as the punishing cold lifts.

Time

15-20 hours

Difficulty

Medium

Not too technical but it helps to be good at drawing, painting and slip stitching, so still quite a skilled one.

You will need…

 A fitted top or tunic dress (I bought mine for £7 on sale from H & M) it has to have a fitted bodice and ideally underwired or similarly structured bust cups

1 x 0.5m white fabric unless your dress/top is already white, of course, but I struggled to find one

Fabric scissors

Pattern master or graded setsquare

Gold gel pen

Needle

White thread

Thread scissors

Pins

Pencil

Black gel pen

Fabric paints in red, brown, yellow and green Mine cost £3 by Dylon from John Lewis

Black oval faceted gems and silver diamantes Mine cost £1.10 per box from Tesco

Gem and fabric glue 

Create the cream of the crop tops…

…Simply by following this video tutorial:

And the final creation again…

Luxurious lace and sheer sophistication get their star turn at D & G

In a final attempt to squeeze in my ode to Dolce & Gabbana’s massive star print trend of the season, like an expertly yet painstakingly harvested gourmet orange juice, I give you not one but two video tutorials.

They’re about how to make your own version of the star print jeans, worn by Julianne Hough in Elle magazine, and the lace insert dress, worn by Lily Allen, also in Elle magazine, both of which are by Dolce & Gabbana.

First of all, a little background: Thinking of Dolce & Gabbana’s starry take on their trademark sartorial sex appeal, it seems reminiscent of the theatrical whimsy of early 20th century fashion from the eloquent flair of Erté’s illustrations to the theatrical oeuvres of couturier Paul Poiret.

Think of couture’s founding masters and you may well remind yourself of Christian Dior and Coco Chanel, but the slightly lesser known Poiret was the most influential designer of the pre-war period. How prophetical he was in using the influence of fashion to project his image of shock and theatrical panache, noting that “all fashion ends in excess” He gave us endlessly-renewing fads of harem pants, the spectacle of the outré fashion show and the commercial addition of perfume to a fashion house’s repertoire. In short, and in no uncertain terms, fashion’s first branding genius, you might almost say he was ahead of his time – and how times have changed…

From designer to celebrity and lucrative branding empire – in that order – those were the days! Fast-forward a hundred years and play musical chairs as to who gets to sit in the pound seats and you’ll find that fashion modus operandi reversed, with celebrities taking the lion’s share as so-called “designers” in the name of becoming a brand. Those who’ve really arrived monopolise a design studio and put their image-inspired stamp on it. Those who want to extend on that add to their world-dominating repertoire with their “own fragrance”  (sadly not in the Jean-Baptiste Grenouille sense, but I digress) or attach anything else you care to name to their name and ever-growing empire, whether or not they’re responsible for the credit they claim (which, f.y.i. makes plagiarising their style for a fraction of the price, from which they can’t profit, all the more satisfying!) Okay, so there’s aspirational method in such madness on the part of the adoring public, so my whinging, mean-spirited leftie point is? That who says this lavish lot needs to include celebrities of the talented persuasion?

It has been said, in a context for which sadly I can’t claim credit, that reality is for people with no imagination. I couldn’t agree more, and believe the same goes for reality TV, particularly in the celebutante vein. Speaking of no imagination, okay, the effort-to-instant-returns ratio make the genre – and lucrative opportunities – the perfect short-term investment, but what of society taking that angle in the long run? Civilisation as we know it, and to which we’ve grown comfortably accustomed, thank you very much, runs on teachers doctors, nurses and, dare I say ,social workers, not vapid, reprehensible attention seekers with entitlement complexes!  I have neither the energy nor the allocated character space to argue the toss as to where social fascism ends and common sense begins in this entry but it’s an understatement to say I have an issue with charlatanry yielding gilded lucrative avenues of “designer branding,” perfumes and overpublicised 72-hour marriages? I speak of course of Kim Kardashian’s – ahem – blissful union that would drum up exponentially higher income from publicity than its extravagant costs and provoke an online petition to get it taken off the air. That effort that would prove about as punitive as making her write lines using a copy and paste function. Tens of thousands signed it but tens of millions still watched the wedding in the first place, the cynics continue to argue. Not that that was enough to convince countless news outlets that it wasn’t purely a sham marriage, including Kim’s own (okay last) publicist – what a Kard!

Okay, rant over, back to fun fashion creation and thinking happy thoughts!

For the dress, you will need…

A black jersey dress

Black thread

Pins

Contrasting thread for tacking

Stretch lace, about 4m long and 15-20cm in width – got mine for about £4 including postage and packing costs from Gypsy Lace, based in sunny Derby, I believe, and listed as seller Bunter 177 on Ebay

Interfacing about 0.5m

White fabric paint – £2 by Dylon from John Lewis

Foam shapes – more on that later…

Scalpel

Blu-tack

Tailor’s chalk

Pattern master

Felt tip or biro

Fabric scissors

…And this is where the magic happens

Check out this video tutorial to see how I made my couture-alike creation:

For the jeans, you need…

 Black jeans, would you believe

2 pots of white fabric paints, as before I used Dylon’s white fabric palins, £2 a pot from John Lewis

Small, flat bowl into which you need to pour a can of your paint

Spatula, for best results, use one with a pliable scoop – all will be revealed, my friends

Foam shapes or sheets

Pen or pencil

Scalpel

It’s not too late to add a touch of seasonal sparkle with my ode to these celebrity-favoured Miu Miu glitter and suede fan ankle boots.

This was meant to be my final pre-holiday Chic Cheat entry and I thank you for your patience, dear readers, as I’m sure it’s veering well towards tired excuse territory, but the past month’s been a particularly busy one, where I’ve found out through my bitter experience that ‘D’ is for ‘December,’ for ‘Duty’ and for ‘Distractions-aplenty’ as my weekends have become more and more zealously peppered with work, family and social life-related demands that have taken me from my Chic Cheat pursuits.

This was to commemorate, acknowledge or arguably celebrate in the ‘well, it got your attention, so it must have worked’ sense the – shall we say – well-practiced holiday season ritual of dousing the high street’s contents in glitter. Still, hear me out before jumping to any rash conclusions about my homage to these fabulous Miu Miu shoes, exacted on some old ankle boots loitering nervously towards the forgotten depths of my wardrobe. Incidentally, within my research, I tried to find out where glitter may have come into fashion in the historic sense but, other than being used in cave paintings, to little avail. Like with so many Christmas rituals that are, at best, just going through the motions with precious little rationale (Happy new year? In this climate? Surely only slightly more wishful thinking than a troglodyte trying to set up a PR company!) I’ve always avoided the recurrent festive sparkles trend, only to come a cropper with these fabulous designer ankle boots… sweet shoe-fetish surrender!

Difficulty

Medium Easy

In the interests of general arse-covering this one stops only slightly shy of the casual walk-over mark, thanks to a bit of fiddly jiggery-pokery with fake suede and a glue gun, but nothing for you to worry your pretty heads about I promise – girl guide’s honour!

You will need

Black ankle boots, peep-toe or otherwise

Craft mount – I paid about £9 for mine at Hobbycraft

Fine silver glitter – Hobbycraft do an 80g shaker for £3.89

Pins

Glue gun – and make sure it’s fully loaded!

Yellow (ideally fake) suede *Author’s note: Finding suede of that colour may prove a challenge to you. It sure as hell did to me. It can be quite the rude awakening when something so seemingly innocuous as yellow faux suede turns out to have the illusive rarity of lapis lazuli, but, hey nothing you can’t fix if you use…

Yellow fabric paint – by Dylon, £2 from John Lewis, or £2.75 at Hobbycraft if you want to save yourself the extra journey. Just saying!

Face sponge – would you believe, it being nice and soft.

Palette – Something flat and wide, a tupperware lid will do.

What to do with these wondrous finds…

Check out the video and find out! Follow the video and you should have something resembling these…

Animal magic becomes animal-mad chic!

If, indeed, there is a God, or an equally omnipotent being, it was very nice of him (or her – why not?) to notice that we the British were, in fact, due a summer, and make up for it by giving us a gracious heatwave, albeit when all persons concerned were back at work, school and related nasally-inclined grindstones!

Sartorially, we’ve had a summer of colour-clash-chic prints, contrasting colour blocking, nautical novelty and fabulous florals spending most of the season with knockdown sale prices, which is surely a sign of the times. For us lucky consumers, it’s a confection of disposable delights given away for almost pennies, for the shops, a desperate measure under desperate recessionary circumstances and for the workers responsible? Probably god-knows-what unimaginably horrific exploitation or abuse of human rights. That said, the head of my fashion course at university said that rather than necessarily hideous slave labour, some manufacturers feed, water and house their workers, providing a full and civilised community.

Either way, in amongst the harem pants, jumpsuits, tribal and Aztec references garnished with a vague sprinkling of neons, there were some trends which, although huge on the catwalks, were by and large overlooked on the high street, much to my surprise. My favourite were Louis Vuitton’s fabulous glitter sequinned animal motifs, revered by the likes of Vogue, no less, as a key look of the season.

Lupine luxury at Ungaro with sparkle and beading

Looking stylishly symmetrical at Vivienne Westwood

Canine chic at Topshop Unique

Then again, perhaps this prediction was further still ahead of its time than expected, if Vogue, once again, is to be believed (you know, quite possibly) with animal motifs once again making a foray into the big trends for autumn and winter, in all their sequinned, embroidered and printed glory. So here’s how to make your own…

Difficulty

Quite easy

Simple, straightforward and self-explanatory, for the most part. Requires a bit of skill, in the non-overlapping-yet-totally-covering application of sequins, and some planning, in putting your pieces together perfectly like a puzzle, but expert technical level it ain’t!

You will need

Giraffe sequinned top:

Sparkly fabric – A-Z Fabrics on Goldhawk road – think it works out at about £4 metre in black, turquoise, silver and yellow

Jumper – about £5 from Primark

Bondaweb – £4/m from John Lewis

You also need a pattern tracing wheel, all-purpose scissors (that can cut through fabric and paper) and a pen you can use for tracing. All items except pen available in Korbond’s sewing bag, about £4 from Tesco

Iron and ironing board

Zebra sequinned top:

Top – about £3 from Primark

Sparkly fabric – A-Z Fabrics on Goldhawk road – think it works out at about £4 metre – in black, pewter wine and red

Bead and fabric glue for correcting mistakes/ fabric that comes loose – Ells & Farrier do a 125ml bottle

Bondaweb – £4/m from John Lewis

You also need a pattern tracing wheel, all-purpose scissors (that can cut through fabric and paper) and a pen you can use for tracing. All items except pen available in Korbond’s sewing bag, about £4 from Tesco

Iron and ironing board

Tiger sequinned top:

Jumper

Sparkly fabric in gold, orange, black and bronze – A-Z Fabrics on Goldhawk road £4/ m

Bead and fabric glue for correcting mistakes/ fabric that comes loose – Ells & Farrier do a 125ml bottle

Bondaweb – £4/m from John Lewis

You also need a pattern tracing wheel, all-purpose scissors (that can cut through fabric and paper) and a pen you can use for tracing. All items except pen available in Korbond’s sewing bag, about £4 from Tesco

Iron and ironing board

 How you make a sparkling statement…

Print out the template of the animal motif you want to use. Print it out A4 size.

Place it on your bondaweb and trace around the edges of the coloured areas

Place it elsewhere on the bondaweb and trace around the outline. This will be for the base.

Using the dotted textured created by the tracing wheel as a guide, mark the edges out with your pen and cut out the pieces individually, write out which piece goes with which colour. Refer to the template if you’re unsure.

Repeat this with your outline.

Iron the pieces of bondaweb to the sequinned fabric and cut them out.

Referring to the template, place each piece, one by one on the jumper/ top, starting with the base, and affix it with an iron.

Alternative sequin cluster method

You will need

All the items already mentioned in the last list, plus…

9g Gutermann tubes of sequins in the relevant colours – available from a range of haberdashers and craft shops

Bead and fabric glue – Ells & Farrier do a 125ml bottle

You may also want to substitute the sequinned fabrics with plain coloured fabrics, for a smoother surface

Method

As before, then after you’ve attached your base fabrics, cover them generously with fabric glue.

Sprinkle your sequins sparsely enough to completely cover each area but not so that they are on top of each other or overlap, as this will cause them to drop off, leaving areas of nasty white glue visible.

And there you have it, an enduring statement and a jolly, roaringly good new lease of a life for the humble jumper!

While still on the happy note of my previous entry, here’s a Chic Cheat video tutorial how to make your own affordable version of the moth eaten red and grey jeans from Chanel’s Spring 2011 collection, worn recently in Vogue Russia by Blake Lively:

You will need…

Grey jeans

1m approx. red jersey – mine was £13 per metre from John Lewis

Matching red thread

Seam ripper – the implement formerly known as the quick unpick

Needle

Scissors

Plenty of time and patience

Apologies for the year-long Chic Cheat hiatus. Owing to changes in my life and situation – namely starting a new job, decamping eastwards with precious little knowledge of local haberdasheries and working a 45-hour week with the added shock to the system of cooking and cleaning up after myself – blogging duties have had to be temporarily put on hold. Finding time and remaining energy after a full working day has been a particularly tough one, especially coupled with having to get up – or indeed have any recollection of what a clock looks like – at 7AM.

Another issue about settling into Peterborough was the culture shock. The place is under something of a mainstream junta in which you’re met with a barrage of aggressive, stupefied disbelief if you tell anyone you don’t drink alcohol! Still, even in this turbulent sea of conformity I have managed to create a stylish safehaven in my bedroom, into whose dark, intense look I put hours of work…

It’s a detailed style I like to know as “sweet excess” and my dad likes to know as “a million bloody trinkets everywhere!” Still, personal tastes aside, as a twentysometing who still gets IDed everywhere as a rule of thumb, I’m also all to aware of being pigeonholed into the angst-addled, Twilight-obsessed current face of goth culture we know and – some of us – love.

I haven’t actually read the Twilight books, and refuse to as a matter of principle – young, vulnerable awkward little darlings really shouldn’t be looking to to anything predatory as a  magic answer to their issues and isolation, especially of the exsanguinatory persuasion! Then again, maybe I should relish being tarnished with a teen brush as someone who surely can’t be as old as 27, and as a stoic native of a generation so browbeaten into bleak aspirations the word “Standard” has become an expression of ultimate approval! That said, it’s when you get past your teens that you’re taken seriously,  and that anything you embrace could quite possibly be more than “just a phase.” Another measure I take to avoid being labelled in any way, shape or form is by elegantly peppering a sentence with any of the following words and phrases:

“Visual-kei”          “Conceptual”            “Anime”      “Selfsh capitalist”    “Symphonic metal”

“Post-modern”  “But what is post-modern”……… and, lest we forget, “But, what is normal?”

And now for the actual point of this entry…See, in addition to finding my way around, I’ve had to cope without my sewing machine and managed to come up with this Chic Cheat copy of a dress from Chanel’s Spring 2011 collection that doesn’t require sewing. It can also be done on grey tweed jackets…

Difficulty

Very Easy

A bit of cut, stick ‘n’ colour with fabrics and clothes.

You need…

A grey tweed tunic dress or jacket – I used a dress that cost £15 from Primark

Half a metre of black chunky check tweed fabric – I got mine from Classic Textiles on Goldhawk Road

Half a metre of white cotton drill – mine was from the same place as the fabric above

Bondaweb – mine was £4 from John Lewis

All-purpose scissors that cut through fabric and paper

Iron and ironing board

…And to turn them into convincing couture?

Cut out as many 5cm wide strips along the length of your check tweed fabric. This should amout to ten strips – with half a metre of fabric – but you may be lucky as some fabric vendors may be more generous with excess fabric.

Cut strips of bondaweb of the same length, whic are 2.5cm wide and cover half of each of your tweed strips.

Iron the bondaweb along the sides of your tweed strips. Your bondaweb should have one soft, fabric-like side and one covered with paper. Make sure you attach it soft side down so that it sticks to your fabric.

Once all your bondaweb is attached, peel away the paper to expose the other adhesive side.

Iron your tweed strips, bondaweb side down, to your dress along all of the seams, neckline and centre front. Also, cover the dart seams at the front and back, continuing in a straight line along the rest of the garment.

Fray the excess tweed fabric, that is the fabric that isn’t attached with the bondaweb.

Cut your white twill into small rough ovals, approximately 5-7cm long and 2-5cm wide. Just eyeball these measurements, I put them as a ball park size figure.

Cut matching ovals of bondaweb that are slightly smaller than each of your twill ovals and iron them on, as before, leaving a tiny amount of your twill uncovered, which then needs to be frayed to give them a raw edge.

When you have done this, peel away the paper, as before and iron the twill to the dress, sprinkling them in a random pattern.

And you should have something that looks rather a lot like this:

Chanel your energy into frayed and collaged chic for a unique look!