Repurposing with Purpose: How Creative Recycling Builds Community

I'm counting down my final month before retiring from my full-time job to pursue art full-time, with exciting collaborations highlighting my lifelong passion for fashion. My childhood dream of becoming a fashion designer has come full circle through partnerships with sustainable fashion brands, designers, and local businesses.

• Working with Christine from Sewing and the City on sustainable pattern designs
• Selected as a fashion influencer for a local clothing resale company
• Creating custom clothing modifications at the Pro Football Hall of Fame Fashion Show
• Offering resources at my studio for customizing sustainable fashion finds
• Planning fall clothing swaps where people can exchange items and revamp them on-site
• Northeast Ohio has abundant thrift and consignment shopping opportunities
• Sustainability in fashion requires creativity but creates unique personalized wardrobe pieces
• Finding designer brands at thrift prices creates accessibility and reduces consumption
• The social environment of creating together inspires new ideas and community connections
• Altering and customizing clothes on-demand has become an unexpected part of my business

Share your sustainable fashion projects with me so I can showcase them, and stay tuned for updates on my shopping adventure tomorrow and upcoming collaborations!

Sewing and the City

Pro Football Hall of Fame Fashion Show

Mega-Thrift's old blog page

Chapters

• 0:00 Retirement and New Art Beginnings
• 1:26 Childhood Fashion Dreams Come Full Circle
• 2:44 Exciting Fashion Collaborations Ahead
• 5:01 Sustainable Fashion: Challenge and Importance
• 9:00 Creating Community Through Repurposing
• 12:05 Future Plans for Clothing Swap Events

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:06

Hello everyone, welcome back. It is Brutally Made. I am so excited to be here with you. I have officially one month left of my full-time job today, so June 30th is my retirement date and, yes, I'm counting down the days. I'm so excited to be able to focus on my art full time and the more that I am doing, the more that I am getting requests to collaborate with others and do more in the community and with local businesses. More in the community and with local businesses it just makes me so excited. So that kind of led me to thinking about some of the requests that I've been receiving and how they almost all have a very similar, I guess, characteristic. I think about them.

Speaker 1: 1:03

A lot have been with fashion, and that is so fun to me because I've got to find some throwback pictures to add to this for the YouTube channel, because I wanted to be a fashion designer when I was younger and I wanted to illustrate. I thought it would be fun to draw like the gowns that Disney did for the princesses and just stuff like that. I just loved fashion. And so in high school I was in this pageant called Junior Miss and you had to have a talent, a performing talent, and although I sang and I did things in like theater class and stuff like that, it really wasn't me. So I wanted to draw. So I drew this glowing unicorn in chalk with a black light. Live to music. And I think back about doing that at age like 15 years old, on the stage in a formal little like mini ball gown dress just craziness. But I was, that's what I wanted to do. But I walked out to introduce myself with my sweater dress on and a tape measure around my neck and had a portfolio in my hand that I was going to be a fashion designer. And it's so funny now to think about the requests that I'm getting to collaborate with some places that offer fashion and people that offer fashion and make patterns and revive you know, different existing pieces, and I just think that that is so cool that it's coming back in the you know, in the universe at me.

Speaker 1: 2:44

And yeah, so here I am. Christine, with Selling in the City, has contacted me and I'm super excited to have her on the podcast next month. I've printed the Manhattan dress pattern that she designed. She designs patterns and makes clothes, but then she also gives new life to existing things by adding little pieces and parts to them, and I love that focus on sustainability.

Speaker 1: 3:13

And then I had a clothing company here in town looking for fashion influencers, and so I was like, hey, what can I do to help? So they picked me, and so tomorrow I get to go shopping at their store and like blog about the whole thing and show that buying, you know, resale clothing and making it new again for you that's my whole vibe. I mean, that's what I do. So I am so excited about doing that, and I was gifted three machines from some of the Girl Scouts that were in at an earlier class, and so now I have more sewing machines for our class and I just it's just makes my heart so, so happy that we're going to be able to offer stuff like that. And then at the Pro Football Hall of Fame Fashion Show, I will be there with another brand and we are going to let you customize your clothes as you pick them, and so I will have all kinds of things that you can do to make them yours, and I just think this is so fun to be able to bring these kind of ideas to a location in a place where you're hands-on. It's not like you have to go home and do it yourself. No, you sit down and you get to make this yourself, and I just absolutely love sharing that.

Speaker 1: 4:37

And so sustainability is kind of like what's on my mind today and putting that out in the world by reminding you that, yes, buying new, I understand sometimes that's what you need to do, but if you take a moment to find out what's there and it is like a treasure hunt it has to be in your size, it has to be in the color you like, the style that you want. You know it's not as easy. It takes a lot more time and practice and looking for it and finding the right location. It's not like you can go into a store and you have one piece that's offered in six sizes and the colors are all there. It's a lot harder to be sustainable with your fashion and with things that you like, so you have to be more creative, and so I get it. It is a little daunting, but it can work and you can make it your own. And there's things like okay, this isn't the size that I want or use, but I could revamp this and make this work for me. So just thinking about that and why it is so much more important now about that and why it is so much more important now because of all of the different things that are out there, that seem to be in the news, that go into landfills, that go into those you know locations and other parts of the world that are bombarding their ecosystems and it's just so hard on their locations because of what our purchasing, you know, is like. So it's just the culture and consumption that we have. We can make a difference by being a little bit better with our choices when we go purchase something. So I just think that it would be really fun to dive into you know what that means to you and how you can incorporate that into your creativity and just thinking about it and in any business, I mean it doesn't just have to be in fashion, it can be definitely with your art I love finding things to reuse and repurpose and restyle it and use it as your basis or incorporate found things.

Speaker 1: 6:48

That's what our brushes and buses tours, going to those locations and finding treasures to break apart and reuse to make something new. That was personal for us. That was that's so much fun. I love doing that. That was personal for us. That was that's so much fun. I love doing that, and so thinking about the materials and getting the tools together to, you know, revamp something. That's all part of being sustainable, and I love having the location and the materials available so people can do that. If they don't have, you know, them on hand themselves.

Speaker 1: 7:23

Plus, you're in like this social environment where your ideas feed off one another and what you're doing is, you know, inspiring somebody else that may be sitting at the table with you. That certainly happens. I've watched someone create an entire piece, rip it completely apart and, like start over, because they were inspired by what somebody else is doing. I've seen it happen and that's okay. We can totally do that and make it something that we're really going to love. So, you know, just you know, taking the time to maybe research a few trends. I know that I've been creating a couple boards on Pinterest to inspire what I would like to go find when I go shopping tomorrow at this location, and I'm very excited to be able to share with you when I'm done. You know my inspiration, what I find, how I change it up a little bit and maybe, you know, get you thinking about. Okay, you know, new season is here. I'd like to bring some new looks into my wardrobe and I can go there and do that. So it's really, you know, a lot of intention, but it's good to think that direction and it's soothing and it's mindful to take the time to enjoy looking for that.

Speaker 1: 8:40

I love the shops that we have around here that offer used clothes and used items and resale and all of the consignment stores and just it's great. We have a lot. Even just Northeast Ohio alone has a lot. So I have a friend, carrie, she does this mega thrift shopping list. It's phenomenal. I'll have to find it and share it in the show notes because they're all over Northeast Ohio and you can just take a tour and be shopping for hours just for resale and consignment stores and it's so good. So it does make you feel like you're doing something good for the environment because you're reusing what's already out there and that's good that you know that a little thing and it goes a long way. But then when you can take it and make it personalized and make it your own and revamp it, it's even better because no one's going to have that, it's only going to be yours. So you know, keep that in mind, to make sure that you keep in mind that you can personalize stuff, and so I really think that it helps our community and it builds community when you do it in like a social setting, like at our studio, but just sharing what you're doing inspires others.

Speaker 1: 10:03

I've been inspired by many bloggers and vloggers over the years that would, like I remember, dress a day. She would take something, she would find and revamp it and make a new piece of clothing every single day, and I was just fascinated by watching her do that. And I just think that people that are using here's a man's t-shirt or here's a man's you know dress shirt and we're turning it into a child's romper and it's like that's just endearing and so sweet. I just I love taking things apart and reusing them and it's all just like right up my alley and I'm finding that a lot of people are the same. They have the same mindset. They love doing that and being inspired by that. And when you all come to the shop and you're like I watch your video every day just to see what you're wearing, it cracks me up. I just love that. I had no clue that you guys even cared. I mean, I have worked from home for five years. I see no one but my husband and our animals, and maybe some people see me on Zoom once in a while. So it's just like really you care about what I'm wearing and I mean I do offer a few little pieces in the store because they're things that I love or my artwork is on them, or the manufacturers that make some of my things that is on them, but I'm all about.

Speaker 1: 11:26

There's a whole system and set of things that you can take what I sell and personalize it. We've patches, we have fabric paint, we have heat presses, we have beading, we have all kind of embroidery, all kinds of things that you can take that and sit down and like I want to personalize it with this or this or want to add this. I have altered clothes for people as they have gone to dinner. They have tried something on like well, I wish it had this, or I'm short and I need this, or I need this, taken in or out. Get my sewing machine out and like go to dinner, come back, your clothes will be altered. And I laugh. I'm like don't tell me why I do that, because I don't have time to do it for everyone. But it's so funny because I end up doing it for everyone that has asked. So it's like it's not something I planned as part of the business plan. But my machine is there, I can do it. I've sewn clothes for years.

Speaker 1: 12:22

I can probably alter what you need, and so it's just so funny that that's what it turns into, but it's, you know, really being authentic and reminding people that it doesn't have to be taken at face value. It can be altered and changed and made especially for you. So that's what's most important, and sometimes the costs. I mean, don't you just love it when you find something at a resale place and maybe the tags are still on it or maybe they're not, but it's like this is a brand that you love and you've never been able to obtain it because the price and now you can that's also huge. That's so much fun, that's just thrilling to be able to do that, and so that's cool. So you know, keep that in mind, and then you feel a little bit better if you do kind of alternative it because you didn't pay. You know that bigger ticket. So it's okay to approach it that way too, and there's so many fun.

Speaker 1: 13:24

I have a lot of resource books. Leave you ideas at the shop, but, oh my gosh, you can Google and Pinterest, search hundreds of thousands of things and, you know, give you ideas on how to, you know, do something sustainable with what you have, and I just think that keeping that in mind is what's most important. I'm even thinking about maybe doing some kind of like clothing swap in the fall, so things that you don't want anymore, that maybe you just don't have time to take to a resale shop or to turn into a local thrift that you could bring them in and other people can swap with you, and then you can like, revamp them while you're there. So, again, just thinking outside of the box and being creative with stuff that I know that I need to get rid of and things that I need to do myself, and just trying to practice what I preach. So I just wanted to talk a little bit about that and put that little bug in your ear.

Speaker 1: 14:19

As summer is coming along, garage sale seasons are starting, you know, looking for those things that you can revamp and reuse and recycle, repurpose and make ourselves better, our planet better, and, you know, maybe save you some money and maybe even create it to resell. So a little profit, but, but yeah, so stay brutally made be inspired by one another. If you have done something cool, share it with me so I can share it with everyone. I have always shared what I've revamped and I plan on when I go shopping tomorrow and share the location that I'm working with and thanking them for selecting me to be part of this program, because I'm very excited about it and I'm really excited to bring Christine to you.

Speaker 1: 15:05

I believe she lives in Spain. I, because I'm very excited about it and I'm really excited to bring Christine to you. I believe she lives in Spain. I hope I'm not misspeaking, but she has beautiful patterns and I'm very excited about just sharing the whole process of printing this off and making this darling dress and sharing you know how to you know make your own clothes and revamp your clothes that you have and, yeah, so just stay vertically made. We are headed into June, so take care, have a great weekend. I will talk to you soon. Bye.