The Shopping Ban / Frugal Fashion Thread

[FrugalFashionista]

Tentatively dipping my toes in here ---
Do you love clothes, shoes, accessories, and beauty products - perhaps a bit too much?
Have you self-prescribed a shopping ban, are you on a strict budget, or are you trying to learn to shop more mindfully for other reasons? Are you a budding recessionista, thriftionista, frugal fashionista - or would you like to become one?
Would you like to do this with like-minded people, still looking stylish and up to date?

This thread could be a place for mutual support, inspiration and creative tweaks (planning outfits from what you already have; charity shopping, swaps, repurposing).

My personal goal: no more clothes, shoe or beauty purchases in March.

I'll tell you more about why I am here in true 12-step tradition, but we need a few like-minded people first

I bought some jeans. Bad because it broke my spending ban BUT they were £5 in Primark so I don't feel too terrible. They are burgandy ankle grazers (so full length jeans on me) with a line of black down each side. I have been eyeing them up for a while but didn't think they were worth full price at the time as they are a fashion item rather than a classic I'll keep for years.

Busy but here is an idea board for Matsikula! Would not necessarily wear all of the looks, just some ideas about possible combinations!

Yesterday I wore my great new skirt from chablislover and today I started taking up my luvverly new trousers from frugal. Thank you both.

I also agree about the mending and making. I bought a muted red tartan skirt from a charity shop last month which was a horrible calf length but nice material and pattern. Yesterday I altered it to knee skimming length and it looks pleasingly A line. I hope to make an infinity scarf out of the material I cut off. Don't worry, I won't wear them together!

And more excitingly, I've just successfully won a sewing machine on eBay so I'm really excited about that. I used to make a lot of my clothes and alter things when I was younger. That was back in the day when you could go to a jumble sale and get an original 50s dress for 20p. My intention is to look in charity shops for clothes made out of good quality material that I can then alter. Trying to find something that's 100% cotton etc. is pretty much impossible on the high street. And nothing ever fits me properly!!!

Ooh I can brag for once. I have had my denim jacket for 11 years. It is Calvin Klein, bought in LA and looks fabulously vintaged now. One of my oldest garments. Was looking through an archive box of stuff and found an Oasis pencil skirt bought in 1999. It is a size 14, and has a 28 inch waist. Vanity sizing has definitely happened!

Some setbacks today. Ceecee will wear my merino dress because I managed to damage it beyond repair (wind + Ikea drying rack = holes). I decided to see what would happen to the dress if I intentionally felted it - so closed the holes with a matching color wool yarn and put it through normal 40C washing cycle. When it came out the wool was matted, the holes had disappeared and it was about 30cm shorter than before - and toddler size But you can shape wet felt - I got it on somehow and spent half an hour shivering on the sunny terrace, then let it dry on the radiator - and now I have a pale gray felt peplum top with 3/4 sleeves . The color is still wrong on me and I'm not exactly your average felt-wearing lady But may try to find ways to wear it just for the heck of it Wish I had dyed it cobalt blue while I was at it

I love your mending/darning/sewing vibe Matsikula and QoW. I've given a new life to a couple of items during the last weeks, and I absolutely love them. The newfound items and I share a story now - they have been down on their luck, we have refound each other, I've spent some time and effort on them, and that feeling is much more satisfying than any frenetic midnight e-basket binge ever. That's love, eh? Am promising right now to fix another item this weekend.

I wore the navy blazer I took in last Sunday today with brighter blue city shorts, gray cotton opaques, navy desert boots and my taupe bag. The city shorts are high-waisted and really hard to style, but the blazer was a perfect match < enthusiastic feedback from builders > Another perfect match: a terracotta cropped Zara bolero cardigan from way back - 2004?

TiC and Matsikula and Amber lots of trend-casters seem to say that denim jackets are going to make a big comeback (this summer???). OneLittleLady your jeans sound like a sound purchase!

It's quite warm here but people are still wearing winter clothes - dark colors, slimline mid-thigh wool coats and gilets. Just about every woman wears either ultralong bootcuts or flares paired with desert boots, high heeled boots or wedges One lady wore long slim black bootcuts pulled over her chunky-heel Celine courts...

D'oh, CeeCee will not wear my dress

Can someone recommend some newbie guides about mending and altering your clothes? I never learnt that stuff, but I have lots of clothes at home that could be used if I had the skills to alter them...

FF - make it into a cushion?

Great to have some stylists to hand Frugal and Travelincolour - thank you. Have a cool toned brown work skirt and plenty of navy I can try the blouse with, plus some darker bottle greens. for some reason I couldn't think past grey and black. That pale green on the Pinterst board is beautiful - I guess that is sea green?

I really wavered over the denim jacket- I actually went off to a cafe and then came back for it. i was put off partly because It's way too cold at the moment to wear it as a jacket, then I remembered that I used to like wearing one (ahem, nearly 15 years ago) as a visible layer under a coat. I had a nice leaf green iridescent mac that my old denim jacket worked really well with. Will try it with my bright yellow raincoat, khaki parka, plus maybe a grey wool coat/blazer type thing. Will make a change from wearing my really heavy coats all the time.

Pretzel you can get started by googling - blogs and info sites are full of how to mend tutorials:
how to darn a sock

how to sew on a button

how to hem clothing by hand

how to repair holes, rips and ripped seams

DH is going to the gym and I'm stuck at home with DC so I may have some time to fix an item or two today!

My top tip: buy special button thread. Much stronger. I keep my sewing supplies in a black NAP box - I also store spare buttons, pieces of ribbon etc there. Low on some essentials (no navy thread!) so may need to buy more.

you can get started by googling
yes i probably could
Thank you anyway!

I must show my girls how to mend. I picked up skills watching my grandmother and my mother without really realising I was learning so make do and mend is automatic for me. It could well be a dying art so must pass it on. Common sense cooking too (basics, not recipe) but that's another thread.

Yes I think it's a dying art, please pass it on. My mum never learnt me that stuff - she grew up when girls were trained into housewife stuff and hated it- this type of basic skills are very needed though!

When I was small I used to practice sewing buttons onto or hemming a scrap piece of fabric in a contrasting colour so I could see how neat it was. I would often shorted skirts, dresses and trousers in my teens through necessity as I'm only 5'2" and there weren't affordable petite ranges back then. Grab and old tshirt or teatowel and have a little practice

Ceecee I'm the same know how to do this things by watching my mum.

I also agree on cooking basics

If you can do that you will never starve and ill realise its not that hard - it annoys me that people say I can't cook. It's a basic life skill for me and I'm trying to teach my son that.

Queen - glad you like the skirt and thanks for the necklace.

pretzel it depends what level of competency you want to get to and what your current skill level is. Darning tights, sewing on a button is easy to learn using YouTube and Pinterest.

If you want to understand how to cut from a pattern or put a zip in, try a learn to sew course. Most Council adult education services do them and there are lots of sewing cafes and shops too. Just type 'learn to sew my town' into google and it'll come up. Sewing has become a bit of a middle class lifestyle choice recently so some of the more fancy stuff is quite expensive but the adult ed courses aren't too bad.

I learnt to sew from my maternal grandmother who I spent a lot of time with while growing up. My Mum never did any and would leave it all for when my gran came to visit! However I come from a family of cooks and DD (8) can cook a bit. Just little things, but she can make herself toast or noodle soup and with a bit of supervision, is starting on things like vegetable and chickpea curry.

YY frugal about clothes you have worked on having more value. It does feel like there is more of a relationship, what a lovely way of putting it.

Pretzel sorry didn't mean to be flippant - like others, I've learned basic mending skills from my mother and granma. I also had an excellent Home Ec teacher who taught me how to knit socks and many wise things about materials and techniques. In high school, I took a daily dressmaking class for a year and learned a lot - in fact I made most of my clothes myself in my late teens and early twenties (have never been as well-dressed since). Really recommend a class - QoW had great ideas - it's fun and by being an apprentice you pick up a lot of tricks nobody has bothered to explain. But feel free to ask - I'm trying to start doing all these things again and have to relearn quite a lot. Even threading the sewing machine after a years and years was a challenge. Oh and start small! Repair a rip or a hole!

One of the big reasons I started this thread is that I realized that my DDs are starting to imitate my consumer behaviors. I don't think it's very difficult to become an expert bargain shopper. Given the means, just about anybody can do that. For me, learning to be more mindful and frugal is much more of a challenge, and it's a skill I'd much rather pass on to them.

Chablis I've the same attitude about food. Mat leave on a tight budget was an excellent refresher course. I'm a foodie and learned how to make delicious stews from pulses and cheap cuts of meat with a pressure cooker. Leftover pasta + a few eggs = an oven frittata...

Hope this does not sound like someone's mother . Lunch on the table, have to go...

I'm notoriously frugal about food and cooking. I waste nothing. I just have a weakness for clothes which is possibly because I had very few new ones growing up. I'm from a very large family so everything was hand me downs or mended until it literally fell apart and ever since I had my own money, I've never been able to resist buying 'just a couple of tops' or something. That said, I do buy almost all of my clothes in sales so my frugalness at least goes that far!

A real life sewing class sounds like a great idea! Thanks, I will check it out.

I really like this thread. Just thinking about being creative with clothes and taking care of them/mending/altering instead of overshopping is making me happy - because shopping is stressful even when it's fun! Anyone else feel the same?

Pretzel this thread is making me happy!
And OneLittleLady I think many of us with overshopping/hoarding tendencies have experiences of missing out - and perhaps that's why we sometimes overcompensate.

I don't deny it - I love shopping. But the thrill is usually over right after I have paid. I'm not to about to don a sack and ashes, I just want more lasting satisfaction from what I wear. I love combining clothes, tweaking them, styling them - just want to do it more creatively and without being pressured to change my style when I'm not ready to change.

Reader, are you a beauty junkie? I just emptied, sorted out and rearranged three drawers full of beauty junk products. (I could use the drawers for other purposes.) Most of them are products once loved and then abandoned. Or backups, hoarded from overseas. Face masks, micro peeling products, moisturizers, lip balms, whitening toothpastes, crappy organic hair products, high-end cosmetic samples... Plus a bagful of hotel toiletries (=a lifetime of guest bathroom soaps).

Consequences: a total beauty spending ban until spares are used up. And a 2 out/ 1 in policy if I fancy something new. Plus as a punishment, I will wear a black peat face mask every week a) until said product is finished or b) until my face falls off

Does anyone else have shameful beauty secrets to share? Budget beauty tips welcome too...

Had two more swapboard parcels arrive today! In total that's four gorgeous new tops for less than £30 and add in the lovely fuzzy feeling that people you have never met have done something lovely for you . Thanks again Frugal, CeeCee and Shop

still lots of lovely things

My only beauty tip as a way to use up unwanted face cream/lotions 7 serums if they are not quite right for you is to use them on neck and decollete or even back of hands especially the ones that come as 'free' gifts, erases some of the guilt and makes face cream last longer if it is not being slathered all over neck !!!

My face hates that no.7 Perform and protect is it ??? Knocked years off my hands though

Oh yes and foundations which aren't quite the right colour I mix with my regular moisturiser giving me my a tinted moisturiser.

Gah a frugal fail here. I have a quilted short jacket from years ago and wanted to update it a la zara style with ethnic trim. Bought 4 yaerds for £2.40 and stitched it on all the way round and on the cuffs. tried the jacket back on and it looks awful. Makes me resemble a house end now. So unpicking it all now