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Recycling your clothing is fun, socially responsible and makes you stand out above the usual fashion crowd!

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Here’s a few Gok Wan-inspired hints and tips about transforming a plain pencil skirt into a stunning, wearable work of art. Look different, feel different and unleash your creativity!

Useful Materials

I use a huge range of materials to decorate my clothes. For this skirt I used:

• Tulip craft paints - about £2 each from most good art shops
• faux multi-coloured diamante jewels - about £8 for a box of several hundred
• scraps of flock fabric, once a floaty skirt from Monsoon - £3.99 from a charity shop
• offcuts of shimmering voile fabric - 50p at a boot fair
• Pebeo fabric paints - about £3.50 each from most good art shops

The jewels, craft paints and fabric paints last for absolutely ages. So you can split the cost between a whole load of projects.

The biggest investment is time. This project took an hour and a half per side but I’m pretty fast… I’ve been having fun decorating and recycling my clothes for twenty five years.

Here’s how I decorated my skirt:

1. painted the base design of flowers on to the front of the skirt - I always put paper behind so it doesn’t leak through. For this design I used three different sized brushes and simply used the shape of the brush to create petals. Not so much painting as ‘blobbing’! Then fixed it with an iron as per the pack directions.
2. drew around the base design using Tulip craft paints - I steer clear of drawing over the fabric painted areas because the Tulip paint doesn’t stick properly. It peels off after a while. I only draw on the fabric itself.
3. used blobs of Tulip craft paint as glue, sticking diamante jewels into it while it’s wet
4. let everything dry
5. cut out leaf shapes in shimmering gauze fabric and fixed them to the skirt by drawing Tulip paint along the edges to stick them down
6. let the whole thing dry
7. cut out flock velvet flowers and leaves from the Monsoon skirt and fixed them by drawing round the edges with Tulip paint
8. drew leaf veins on the voile leaves with Tulip paint
9. let it dry overnight
10. did the whole process again on the reverse of the skirt 

Useful information about decorated recycled clothing:

• All the stuff I’ve used to create this skirt is fully washable
• It lasts forever. I’ve had many of my decorated tops and skirts for years
• Decorated clothes are never finished. You can always add more.
• If you’re stuck for a design, copy or trace something you love and take it from there.
• Novice? Hit the charity shops and practice on a few old pieces before you tackle your wardrobe.
• Charity shops are also a great place to find lovely, rich fabrics for a few quid. Dismantle a 1990s silk or velvet shirt. Or cut the flowers out of a patterned ’70s dress
• Once you’re confident, decorate clothes you already love. Then you’ll enjoy wearing your recycled versions even more, for longer
• If you decorate a plain, timeless piece of clothing like a t shirt or shirt it’ll stay current for longer
• Fabric paints and craft paints… always follow the instructions!

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