Monday, January 26, 2015

Reimagining Clothing: Plain Wool Cardigan

cardiganrefashion cardiganrefashion2

Slowly, over the last ten years or so, I've built up a wardrobe made up of mostly thrifted, vintage, or free items. The only items I don't thrift are jeans, shoes, and undergarments, because it's difficult to find the level of comfort and fit I want unless I buy them new. Goodwill and Value Village are the source of most of my wardrobe staples - and it's pretty amazing how much quality clothing you can find, very inexpensively, from places like these. And because the garments are so inexpensive, it's an easy way to try out trends or silhouettes without a huge investment - not only that, I like the idea of giving new life to clothes that might otherwise have been discarded.

Despite the low cost of much of my wardrobe, I try to only keep items that I really love - and up until a few weeks ago, I was thinking that it was time to modify or let go of this cream wool cardigan. It has a flattering shape and color - but it's also really, really boring, and I never found myself reaching for it in the morning. At the same time, it's a great cardigan, and it seemed a shame to get rid of it.

So when I was thrifting a few weeks ago and found this stained, too-big Lands End cotton cardigan with a super cute enamel detail, I decided to spend the 6 dollars to see if I could poach the elements from one cardigan to make another cardigan more wearable. A few minutes in Illustrator, and here's what I came up with:

cardiganrefashion5

I'm hoping that the addition of graphic, colorful details will turn this warm but boring sweater into a wardrobe staple.

We'll see how it goes!

Happy Monday,
Cory

3 comments:

Andi said...

Have you ever seen the blog Dottie Angel? The woman who writes it does a lot of really cool embellishment projects, and it might be a great source of inspiration.

Kat Riddell said...

That looks like a fantastic idea! I can't wait to see how it comes out :)

baju batik said...

Love this
I enjoy it so much
Have a nice day =)