New From Old: How to Transform and Customize Your Clothes

The inspiration and the skills to create fabulous, personalized clothing.

Any woman can transform and customize the clothes already in her closet, making them new, hip and utterly de rigueur. Drawing on technical skills and extensive experience designing for top fashion houses, Jayne Emerson offers inspiration to women who prefer personality in their fashion. Using bargain buys or closet orphans, women of any age can create updated designs by, for example, adding braid, over-dyeing a shirt or converting a sweater into a bolero.

In addition to the specific 30 projects described in detail, the author reviews the necessary sewing fundamentals and provides expert guidance for:

• Transforming lingerie and shoes
• Dyeing, over-dyeing, tinting
• Adding decoration
• Making alterations and changing form
• Making jewelry
• Using non-clothing items.

Throughout the book there are "Before You Start" sidebars, inspirational photographs, illustrated instructions and an eminently practical techniques section. When vintage has become too expensive and secondhand looks outdated, a new wardrobe can be created using New from Old.

Jayne Emerson is a textile designer who has sold her work to such major fashion houses as Donna Karan and Louis Vuitton. This is her fourth book.