Inspiration - Dogstar

I'm not one to follow brands, what I like to wear is not determined by who makes it.  However, I have developed a bit of love recently for Brisbane design house 'Dogstar'.  Their designs are just very different from other stuff that is out there, and many of their items can be worn in multiple ways.  Problem for me is that Dogstar is well above my 'stay at home mum' pay bracket, so instead of buying their stuff, I use it for inspiration.  So be warned, there will be more Dogstar inspired items to come.  Todays post includes 2 Dogstar inspired pieces: trousers, and a wrap made from thrifted fabric.

I love Dogstars VERY wide leg pants, so I was pretty happy when I came across this pair of pants at an opshop recently for $4.  Only problem was they were a couple of sizes too big for me.  But this was easily fixed, and if truth be told this 'refashion' took me the whole of about 2 minutes.

While trying the pants on I pinched either side of the waist and guestimated that I needed to take about 2cm's off each side.  So I turned them inside out, pinned each side (as shown above) from the top of the waist band to about the bottom of the pocket.  I then zipped them through the sewing machine, tapering the stitch as I went to line up with the original side seam at the bottom of the pocket. 

The second Dogstar inspired item I did wasn't a refashion, so I haven't included how to steps here.  But it was made from thrifted fabric, so it does still has some green credentials.  It is an item that can be worn as a halter top, scarf, skirt or shawl and was inspired by Dogstars Kuru Kuru wrap. 

I was pretty happy when I found 3 metres of this fabric that was perfect for my wrap for only $10. 

I must say I'm pretty happy with my Dogstar inspired combo.  It doesn't look to far off the real thing, and after only using half of the thrifted fabric I bought, it cost me a grand total of $9, instead of $350.

This is what the wrap looks like worn in other ways.

If you want to have a look at some of Dogstars beautiful designs, have a look at DogstarClothing on Facebook, or check out their website and online store at http://www.dogstar.com.au  

Retro Tunic

I bought this not so lovely jacket a few weeks ago at an op shop for about $2.  I think I got it just for the challenge of seeing if I could do anything with it.  But I must admit I did kind of like the texture of the retro fabric.  I wasn't in love with the colour and did try to dye it along with the Cardigan in my previous post, but unfortunately the colour didn't take due to this item being 100% polyester...

I had this laying about home for a couple of weeks before I even had any ideas what to do with it.

I did know for sure that the collar had to go.  By this stage I had decided to reverse the jacket.  The front would become the back, which meant the pockets also had to be unpicked.

I sewed next to the buttons so that it wouldn't gape at the back, and also hemmed the cut neck line.

I took a couple of inches off each side, and made it short sleeved while I was at it.

I then attached the two larger pockets to what was now the front.

This is what I ended up with.

Yep, still working on how to strike a pose.