Sustainable Fashion - Mending Clothes the Cool Way

I've been reading a lot lately about fast fashion and it's impact on our envirement. You know, new collections are brought into stores each week, people buying clothes almost everyday, only to wear them onceor twice and to ditch them. Mending clothes? Who does that anymore when it is cheaper to buy new ones.  
Old clothes that we throw away take up precious space in landfill sites, which is filling up rapidly. 

Well, I decided that my wardrobe (and my kids) will not end in the garbage before it is absolutely unusable (not just unwereable).  

So, I decided to take action and mend their clothes. Being an artist  means I know things and have recources. This includes sewong machine, fabric paint  and silk screening kit. And, of course, a good idea.

I took some cool graphics, like sceleton, (I knew they woul like), made a screen out of a wooden frame and old curtain. I covered the screen with photo emulsion I had from some previous silkscreening experimets, and hoped it would still work after being stored for  few years in the basement. It worked, and I was happy.
So I took the ripped jeans (I know ripped jeans are cool, but with my kids it means today it is 1 inch tear, tomorrow 2 inch,... until they are ripped in half). I mended them with sewing machine, adding  layer of coton underneath and it looked like this:

Not cool at all!  So I took the silkscreen I made:

And here is the result:

My kid is happy, he has unique, very cool pair of jeans, I am happy, my kids finnaly appreciate me being the artist ;) and the enviroment is happy too :)

Featured in Belle Armoire magazine!

So happy and proud!!!!
Some of my creations were chosen for the feature in Belle Armoire magazine. Two articles are about my work. One about my handpaintes silk blouses, and other about my ceramic necklaces!   You can find more of my work in my etsy shop.

Something different - shabby chic style

I'm infected!
I thought it happens to someone else, it will never happen to me! But it did!
I'm infected with shabby chic style! I cannot resist it any more, I  admit.
With romantic springy feeling around me and a house full with all kind of silk scraps I had to make my small contribution to shabby chic movement.

Thank you for your attention!
Tanja

Simple handpainted dress

Some time ago I made this simple but beautiful dress of a piece of silk I had previously painted. This was in my pre-etsy time and I liked it so much I decided to keep it to myself.

When I opened my etsy shop I came to idea to make this style of dress as a custom order, without big hopes. But it turned to be my bestselling design. More than a few brides contacted me wishing to have this dress made for their bridesmaids. So Idea is to have dresses in the same color and each gilr can choose her own flower to be painted on the dress.

 I guess I found my niche.

Tanja

Wear it as a top

So the sun came and I decided to take few photos of my scarves for my  etsy shop.  One of the scarves I wanted to take photo of is an oblong silk satin scarf that measures 70"x17" (180x45cm). How to make a nice photo of such long scarf that shows that scarf itself and not the space around it? And how to take a photo showing an interesting way of wearing it? So I came to the idea, Why not wear it as a top? Alone or under a jacket . All you need is a sash to secure the scarf around your waist: 

FRONT

 BACK

 FRONT

 SIDE

 BACK

My first custom order on etsy - a wedding dress

One of my very first sales and absolutely first custom order was a simple wedding dress made after a purple sundress in my etsy shop (http://www.etsy.com/shop/TanjaDesign) I made a dress, shipped it and forgot about it. Couple days ago I received an emil from a girl who ordered a dress thanking me and saying how beautiful it was. So here it is:

When in doubt, add more

These are the words of my favorite teacher at University. I studied Textile Technology and Design at Faculty of Textile Technology, University of Zagreb. She thought the Design of the textile in the way to let as do anything in any medium as long as it would exist long enough for her to see that. We could put living insects on a piece of colored paper, but had to keep them there so she could see that. I don't remember anybody doing that, but several art work went bad (rotten) before evaluation at the end of the semester.
Good think about fiber-rective dye is that the molecules of the dye bond chemically to the molecule of the silk fiber and after steam setting aren't physically present on the surface of the silk. That means they don't change the way silk shines, drapes or feels against the skin. Thanks to that characteristic I can paint a layer over the layer on the silk.
This is the scarf I painted some time ago, on a day that I didn't seemed to have enough inspiration:

So, I decided to add some more:

...and more...

 and more:

...untill I was satisfied:

Much better, isn't it?