9 WAYS TO MAKE SECONDHAND STYLE WORK FOR YOU

1 Show off your mending

Don’t worry about mending your clothes to expert level. Embrace the ‘visible mending’ trend when darning, patching or upcycling clothes, and make it part of the item’s evolution. YouTube is great for tutorials. We like the channel Repair What You Wear.

2 Dare to repair Learn how to repair electronics at your nearest Repair Café, where you can book time with volunteer experts and repair everything from toasters to bikes. Best of all, they can help you with skills to do it yourself in the future, like a one-on-one lesson. Search online for one nearby.

3 Tailor remade If you don’t feel confident tackling your own upcycled fashion project send it to a tailor or fashion designer who can. We love Eva Dragoeva (evadragoeva.com), for her passion not to waste a single scrap of fabric, and online service, Clothes Doctor (clothesdoctor.com), which can mend clothes worth keeping.

4 Refine your pallet

Kick off your secondhand furniture style by upcycling wooden pallets into garden planters or a coffee table on wheels. Pallets are easy to come by and there are endless DIY furniture ideas online, like an outside sofa for your garden. (See The Simple Things May 2021 for more inspiration.)

5 Plant your pants

Give your garden some preloved vibes. Instead of buying new plant pots, reuse old teapots, jugs or buckets for a shabby chic effect or turn old jeans (or anything with pockets) into wallbased planters for herbs and dangling flowers. No1 Garden channel on YouTube offers clever ways to turn plastic bottles into plant pots.

6 From riches to rags

Think of all textiles as a valuable resource. Old shirts can be made into cushions, old cotton pants make great cleaning rags (instead of plastic-fabric Jcloths) or break down clothes past their best into squares for a patchwork quilt.

7 Make plastic fantastic

Even plastic bags can become homewares. Plastic crochet or knitting has taken off online, and it’s easy to create rugs, coasters or even baskets from carrier bags by creating a plastic ‘yarn’. Find how tos on JoannesWeb on YouTube.

8 Keep it covered

Don’t be afraid to reupholster a sofa or chair if you like the shape of something secondhand. Changing the fabric is an easy update to well-made seating, which you can either do yourself (YouTube will be your guide) or employ a local craftsperson. Check out Recovered by Ollie (recoveredbyollie.com), who specialises in updating mid-century and older furniture with modern fabric.

9 Secondhand style Need some visual inspiration? Give these Instagram upcycling, vintage and secondhand accounts a follow: @inreverievintage for small trinkets, @mrs.secondhand for 20th-century furniture, or @scenebychloe for retro homewares.

“Being ‘sustainable’ is about respecting the resources needed to make things”