Frugal Fashion Week

Read more Oily Rag articles by Frank and Muriel Newman

It’s Fashion Week. It’s a glitzy, flashy and expensive sort of affair, so we thought we would travel the oily rag cat walk with our own celebration of fashion with frugality and flair.

• Thirties Depression Baby, Auckland says, “If you are of the granny generation and cannot give this kind of practical help to offspring of your own, just look a bit further a-field. I wore hand-me-downs and mended clothes throughout my childhood and gratefully remember my mother’s knack of making them look special. Let’s use our old-fashioned skills again to help today’s recession children. The same goes for the grandpa generation and for DIY skills in general, of course!”

• F.R. from Oropi in Tauranga uses old jeans to make fashionable bags: “Use any leftover jeans, decorate with lace, buttons, patches, from the crutch area; cut straight across; and resew to seal the legs and crutch.  With the cut off legs, make straps using the leg material; and sew onto the top band part of the jeans where the belt loops are. I used an old tie as a decorative piece threaded into the belt loops. The five pockets I use for placing keys, cell phone, lipstick, sun block, anything small… you can even put a full zip across the top part to seal the new bag.”

• An unnamed reader says, “I buy army surplus gear. I bought an army shirt for $5 about 10 years ago and it’s still as good as the day I bought it. It’s got a German flag on it and someone’s name written on the collar. Find one with “Hitler” on it and you could have gold-mine!”

• G.B. says, “My daughter’s dolls clothes, cot blankets, bibs are real babies’ clothes from Op Shops.”

• If an outfit is needed for a special occasion (a school ball for example), hire it don’t buy it. Buying something to use once only is not the sort of thing those living off the smell of an oily rag would do.

• L.M.C. says, “Check what your kids are going to throw out as being out of fashion or too small. They have some really good gear, and even it is only good for gardening it will be cost effective (a term that, as you know, means cheap!). Another source is to wait until the charity shops have sale days, i.e. fill up a supermarket bag for a dollar etc. We have found that by using the above means of clothing ones self we have managed a trip to Queensland every year to escape the hardships of winter, using all the specials of course.”

• Sam from Hamilton says Op’ Shops are great places to get cheap clothing from. To help find op shops in your area check out www.opshopdirectory.co.nz.

• Shirl from Napier writes, “If you have old jeans that no longer fit, unpick and use material to make jeans for small children; you can add buttons, ribbon, etc to make them more personalised and nobody would even know that they were made out of your old jeans.”

• A reader recalls the experiences of her grandmother. “Gran’ would go to a second hand clothes shop and buy two or three knitted garments. She would undo them, wash the wool and rewind into balls, then knit into multi-coloured jerseys. And with the left over wool she would make soft toys. This is far cheaper than buying new wool.”

• Another says, “I’ve just finished fixing” a pure wool jumper bought in a jumble sale for $1. It had a very dirty neckline (probably because it had been knitted too tightly) so I undid several rows and reknitted it on larger needles, discarding the last few inches of wool. Result, a $150 pullover for $1.”

If you have favourite fashion tips then share them with the oily rag community of frugal thinkers. Log on to our website (www.oilyrag.co.nz) or write to Living off the Smell of an Oily Rag, PO Box 984, Whangarei.

* Frank and Muriel Newman are the authors of Living off the Smell of an Oily Rag in NZ. Readers can submit their oily rag tips on-line at www.oilyrag.co.nz. The book is available from bookstores and online at www.oilyrag.co.nz.