Images: net-a-porter.com

As charming as these items were, with asking prices of £650 and £715 respectively, I – justifiably – couldn’t be asked with the real McCoy. Imagine, then, my excitement when I fortuitously happened upon a DIY fashion solution, courtesy of  the Fashion Love Affairs blog. It’s great to see DIY fashion growing as a fashion followers’ shared interest and as a blogging genre. Turning fashion’s audience from consumerist to creative is a way of life I’m proud to be part of, and it’s heartening to see other bloggers share that vision. It also proved that a lot can happen in the space of just one week – even when you’re working for 45 hours of it – how I love the wonder of modern technology!

Gigi Danielle of Fashion Love Affairs made the prestigious cut for International Fashion Bloggers’ “Links à la mode” list with her DIY jewellery entry “In all my glittery goodness” (Envious much – wardrobe envy, that is. Whatever did you think I meant?) She gave a diamante and ribbon necklace some fashion resuscitation with a slick of neon acrylic paint…

… and a sprinkle of glitter with gold stars to add a bit of sparkle and texture.

To find out how and what to get, here’s the link again – you know what to do!

It’s so easy to get the Erickson Beamon look with this method and a diamante necklace. Mix your neon painted stones with glitter-covered ones. Throw some silver chains into the mix. Give your accessory a right royal finish by adding some diamantés. Have fun, experiment and, of course, save yourself a fortune. Your wardrobe will thank you for it – you know it makes sense!

Image: Net-a-porter

High fashion looked to craft in the 1970s, or the “me decade” as it was dubbed by Tom Wolfe. Zandra Rhodes and Ossie Clark were featured prominently in British Vogue, as well as Barbara Hulanicki’s appliquéd works for her iconic Biba boutique. At the start of the decade, Bill Gibb, a designer known for his leather work, appliqué and elaborate knits, won the coveted 1970 designer of the year title. The do-it-yourself ethos  resonated at all fashion levels as a sartorial embodiment of self-expression. I’ve drawn this comparison in earlier entries with the subtly different paradigm of economising that D.I.Y. fashion signifies today. It’s not to say that artistic expression – the free reign you have of knowing how to make anything you set your heart on – isn’t another factor in the current popularity of crafty fashion projects. The aforementioned handbag I took on in this entry appeared to be a nod to fashion handicrafts of yesteryear, if only in the choice of medium – an incitement to be independent and create a look on a home-made personal level. Well, it was Vogue magazine’s former editor-in-chief, Edna Woolman Chase who said “Fashion can be bought. Style one must possess” I like to think of said style as a second-hand faux snakeskin bag, a few fabric pains, a paintbrush, a palette knife and the merest smidgeon of creative ingenuity!

You will need…

A dark-coloured snakeskin shoulder bag – mine cost £4.21 with postage and packing from Ebay.

Dylon fabric paint at £3/bottle at John Lewis and Hobbycraft in red (dark fabrics paint), white and black

Paint brush

Palette knife

Three simple steps to a stylish snakeskin statement piece:

Use your paintbrush to cover your bag relatively thinly in red fabric paint – by that I mean with the  snakeskin texture clearly showing through and with dark background masked by a red tint but still visibly dark.

Use your palette knife to construct the straight shapes of your stars and to fill them in.

Go around the edges of your stars with your white fabric paint and palette knife. My tip would be to make sure your paint is as runny as possible, dip your palette knife ensuring that you coat the edges generously with paint and wipe the sides on the edge of your pain pot, so that you’ve only got paint on the edge of your knife. That’s the best way to avoid smudging and unwanted mess. Also, if your white line runs slightly thin, as you streak along the edge of your star, so much the better – if you look closely, you’ll see this happens on the original.

… and there you have it!

Oh, and while we’re on the subject of value, you’ll be pleased to know this entry gives you two collars for the price of one, both of them as easy as falling off a log – and pretty much equally inexpensive!

The second outing’s in the direction of Zara with their £18 pink lace collar. £18. Really. The price of a quality top or dress and you get something like 1/50th of a garment! Ahem, rant better out than in, methinks! Now to cut to the chase…

Difficulty

True to my word, this has to be the easiest, least time-consuming venture I’ve taken on in a long time, possibly even in Chic Cheat history.

Time

Want to go pink and frilly? You’re looking at a half hour job, tops.

Looking to toughen up with studs and leather? Oi! Wot u lookin’ at? Realistically, 2 hours or so, depending on how good you are at stud insertion.

You will need…

For the a study in how to get “studdy”

Pack of 100 6mm studs (£3.50 with postage and packing from Ebay – seller ashkx007)

Pack of jewellery connector rings (99p/pack at Hobbycraft)

Lobster clasp (99p/pack of two at Hobbycraft)

Scalpel

0.5m stiff interfacing (I can’t remember what I paid for mine or even if I just scrounged it off my university for free back in the day. I just had it lying around, as I often do with these things)

Computer (like the one from which you’re presumably reading this entry) with a printer and Photoshop (or equivalent program)

Metallic gel pen

Masking tape (optional)

Fabric scissors

Sewing machine with a leather needle fitted

Leather or pleather (Editor’s note – if you want the real McCoy, fish it out of a leather shop’s offcuts bin, or better still, do as I did and pick a cut up jacket out of the reject bin. It’ll be useless to them but invaluable for shoe and accessory projects – mine lasted for three. I paid about £3 for mine, whereas a full leather skin sets you back around £20!)

 Iron and ironing board

For a flouncy flight of fancy

Pink collared shirt (I used a men’s shirt – £5 from a charity shop but you can strike it lucky and pay even less. They start at around £3 with postage and packing on Ebay)

White lace (I paid quite a bit for mine since I cut it off a garment, but you can find some on Ebay for less than £2 with postage and packing – search “White guipure lace”)

Fabric glue (starting at £2.79 from Hobbycraft)

Fabric scissors

So, without further ado, my little stud muffins (terrible pun, model’s own) here’s how it’s done…

Print out the pattern above, making sure it’s 22.5cm in length (Photoshoppers, check using the rulers function)

Cut out your pattern outline using your scalpel. Place it on your leather and use tiny amounts of masking tape on the edges to hold it in place. Trace around the outline using your metallic gel pen. Repeat this another three times so you have four pieces.

Cut out your pieces.

Iron your interfacing onto two of your pieces.

Divide your pieces into two pairs, both of which have one piece with interfacing and one without. Machine sew each pair together, using a leather needle.

Using your pattern, put each piece underneath it once again and use your scalpel to trace out the circles where the studs need to go. Prod four equidistant points around each circle (I would say corners but they’re circles we’re dealing with – you get the idea!) and make sure they all go through both layers.

Now to start putting your studs in. Use the holes you prodded to slip the points of your studs through. You’ll probably need to use your scalpel to open the holes and to help coax the stud points through – I should know, I did.

Place both of your pieces back-to-back with the edges completely parallel, and pierce two holes – one at the top and one at the bottom – to make absolutely sure they’re symmetrical.

Insert two interlinking rings at the bottom and four at the top – two on one side and two alongside the lobster clasp on the other…

…And you should have something that looks rather like this:

To get lacy…

Cut the collar off your shirt.

Cut your lace to fit your collar.

Glue your lace on.

Result!!!

Boom! Owned – and now you can make your own, too. Lucky you!

Another aesthetic blast from the not-too-distant past, here’s another of my recent “sew-last-season” initiatives –  a sartorial reincarnation of a ghost of fashion almost-present, if you will. A bit behind the times?  Yes, however, isn’t looking back to the fashions of yesteryear currently very … au jour d’hui, with “retro” and “vintage” the buzzwords on every on-trend fashionista’s lips? With fashion constantly in flux and trends now moving faster than ever before, even a mere decade’s difference has started to seem increasingly far away with time – leaving the significances of a garment or collection’s age to metamorphose at a greater rate, from old hat to a kind of charming classic chapeau.

Regrettably – and so very unprofessionally – I don’t have a copy of Alison Lurie’s book, The Language of Clothes, to hand, but I remember reading, when I was barely out of high school (why thank you, you’re very kind!) through a timeline of clothing’s significance. It typically followed an arc of looking progressively uglier and more dated over the years, until it crossed the walls of fashion history to become a “vintage” piece. Alternatively, at that point it would be about the right time for the trend to be revisited for a contemporary update – with fashion’s powers that be at the Department of Work and Prada deciding they missed it after all. Thankfully, I found the full list online, which was quoted in the book as Laver’s law, and reads as follows:

Indecent  10 years before its time

Shameless 5 years before its time

Daring    1 year before its time

Smart  —————

Dowdy 1 year after its time

Hideous 10 years after its time

Ridiculous 20 years after its time

Amusing  30 years after its time

Quaint  50 years after its time

Charming 70 years after its time

Romantic  100 years after its time

Beautiful 150 years after its time

Taking that into the current context, last season’s inspirational decades of choice included the (amusing) eighties, the (quaint) sixties and the distinctive fit and flare of the (supposedly part quaint, part charming) fifties. Spring 2012 is currently looking to the (awkward-editor’s note) nineties, otherwise known as a combination of hideous and ridiculous by the above standards. They were a difficult time for me, having got into popular culture – most notably music – at the latter half of the decade when the paradigm shifted from a tasty confection of guitar music (Grunge, Riot Grrl and Britpop) to the formulaic, attention-whore consumerism of pop bands. Worse still was the supply-side economics of conventional TV and radio being the only media available, meaning audiences had to accept whatever slop was broadcast rather than picking and choosing from the internet. The freedom of choice I relish now came with online music and video sharing that wouldn’t become available until circa ‘02/’03 (that’s right, Spice Girls, you owe my generation for seven years of lost evenings, weekends and school run in-car entertainment we’ll never get back – don’t even try to deny it!)

But then this isn’t just about my opinion is it (unfortunately) or Alison Lurie’s for that matter? The Language of Clothes was published in 1981, making it “amusing” by its own standards, no? To make the bold leap of faith back into the nineties, today’s fashion would surely have to have evolved, in approach, if nothing else. Riot Grrl style has given way to Meadham Kirchoff’s cartoon grunge aesthetic. Alaia’s trademark bodycon silhouette has now reached the high street with American Apparel’s chic clinginess. Jeremy Scott’s ingenious Bart Simpson repeat knits are a contemporary bow to the similarly Simpsons-immortalised pencil cases from back in the day. (And Draw Something – the new Pictionary or a well-marketed cyber tribute to the 1990 game show Win, Lose or Draw? You decide… did I say that out loud?) The list of comparisons is endless and my point is, for all that has to be left behind, there are little timeless paradigms that get carried through to become part of a bigger picture, also Illustrated in Lurie’s book. She chooses to see them as parts of a whole look that interdependently punctuate the fashion statement in question. It’s what you do with them, and how you work with what you’ve got that counts.

I’m tackling the starburst-printed kilt from Miu Miu’s Spring 2011 collection, in shorts form, for this entry. I like to think I’ve already justified why, but if you’re still unconvinced and think it’s too much like Dolce & Gabbana’s stars, can I not tempt you, by highlighting its particular resemblance to the still-very-now tribal printed look, and that clashing prints are  unmistakably very “this season.”

You will need

 A black  kilt or shorts

0.5m white satin                    

Black leather or pleather (Want the real McCoy for less? I paid about £3 for a binned and dissected jacket in a leather shop. Great trick of the trade for small jobs like this!)

Silver fabric paint (£3 by Dylon from John Lewis)

Black  fabric paint (as before)

1m Bondaweb ( about £4 John Lewis or £3.50 from Wright’s Fabrics if you happen to be near the Whittlesey area)

Pattern paper

Sharp pencil

Tracing wheel

Patternmaster or graded setsquare

Scalpel (optional)

Fabric glue (optional)

Scissors          

Sewing pins

Sewing Machine with a leather needle

Contact Adhesive (£2.08/ tube B & Q)

Time

 About ten hours

Difficulty

Medium Easy

Following last week’s challenge, this one was a doddle. Everyone loves a bit of couture-inspired cut, stick’n’colour!

So, your mission is…

Draft out a star shape big enough to cover the top of the left leg. Use your pattermaster/ graded set square to straighten the edges.

Use your patternmaster/ graded setsquare to trace out two more parallel star shapes inside your main one, including a much smaller one at the centre.

  Use your tracing wheel to draft out the three stars separately on your pattern paper, trace along the punched lines on each sheet and cut them out.

Iron your bondaweb onto your satin, peel it off and start sketching your line and spike shapes, as well as your stars.

Cut them out and iron them – bondaweb side down – onto your garment. If you find they’re covering the pockets, simply cut across where the pocket edges are and help reinforce them with an extra iron.

 Paint your black dots and silver lines onto the satin.

If you get any fraying on your satin you can put some fabric glue on the edge of a scalpel and smooth them along the edges.

Pin (or position and hold using masking tape) your three star patterns on your leather. Cut them out. Paint the middle layer silver and machine stitch them together, using a leather needle.

Decide where you want to put your leather star on your garment and trace around some corners or any equally good reference points.

Using your contact adhesive, coat both the back of your star and the designated area of your garment in glue. Leave them to dry until they become sticky and then stick your star in place.

Result!!!

Images: Inspiration and Realisation/ net-a-porter

Click here to find out how she got the look!

About the Author:

Donatella writes and catalogues her authentic DIY fashion tutorials on her Inspiration and Realisation blog and has recently turned her hand to typography (and entered it into an online competition – you can cast your vote for it here - you know you want to!)

Image: Style.com

You will need

A white top or blouse (mine was a converted muumuu – £7, charity shop buy)

Screen printing kit (mine was by Artrain and cost about £3 from Ebay)

Iron and ironing board

Lots of plastic carrier bags

Sewing pins

Computer – with Photoshop installed – and a printer

Tissues

Water for rinsing brushes, also a tub of water for soaking and washing screens after use

Paintbrushes – ideally with a small, fine tip

Metal 30cm ruler

Palette knife

Fabric paints in the following colours(I recommend Pebeo opaque fabric paints, £3.99 at Hobbycraft and worth it because they’re not runny like many other fabric paints ):

Other fabric paint colours you’ll need, included with the screen printing kit, are:

Time

About 1-1.5 hours to trace each screen.

About 12-15 hours for screen printing/ blending/ linear pattern painting

About 30 minutes for ironing and preparation

Difficulty

Very Hard

Don’t be put off but I found this a tricky one and I learnt quite a bit on the job. It might have been down to my choice of equipment (the method in my madness was to avoid forking out £50-80 for a professional screen printing kit and not having access to a printing studio – unless you count my bedroom!) A word of warning – screen printing’s a very messy business so take extra care to protect clothes and furniture!

The Video Tutorial

Result!

Image: Chic Steals

About the author

Carly J. Cais has been a trailblazer in the art of DIY fashion. Her writing career started on the Fashion Tribes website and then took off after she contributed crafty fashion tutorials on Threadbanger and Craftstylish. She currently channels her writing style and DIY ingenuity into her blog, Chic Steals, which includes tutorials, styling tips, fashion show coverage, interviews and fashion news.

Image: Matter of Style

Keen to find out how? Of course you are, so click here and find out!

About the Author:

Alessia’s blog, Matter of Style has an eye on fashion as well as a foot firmly in the DIY couture camp, with crafty tutorials, style advice and chirpy fashion commentary sitting comfortably – and beautifully – side by side, accompanied with stunning photography.

Images: Feed Your Style

About the Author

Micol Zanzuri feeds her style ideas to thousands of followers from her fabulous fashion blog, most notably in video form. It was shortly after she started filming DIY fashion videos that she got thousands of views and the call to present the Do It Yourself section for Grazia Magazine’s website. Check out her Fashion Attack series for directional and up-to-the-minute DIY guides of the season.

Image: Style.com

Image: Glitter’n'Glue

…for LOADS less? Click here to find out how – and have fun!

About the Author:

New York-based DIY blogger, Kristen Turner had an impressive track record in the fashion industry before finding her creative calling in Glitter ‘n’ Glue. After working as a fashion publicist and a celebrity stylist, Kristen started her blog as a creative, money-saving guide to replicating the latest trends and has since collaborated with a host of brands and magazines, including Teen Vogue, and was even featured on E! News, sharing celebrity fashion-inspired DIY projects.