Upcycled Bustier/Skirt Set from Thrifted Coat

My name is Sara Jayne Wilson and I am a senior in the Apparel Merchandising and Product Development Program within the Dale Bumpers College of Agriculture, Food, & Life Sciences. My mentor for this honors research project is Dr. Lance Cheramie, a faculty member of the Apparel Merchandising and Product Development Department within the School of Human Environmental Sciences. This is my second and final semester of research for this project, and I plan to graduate with Honors in May of 2021.

The title of my project is called, Conscious Couture: Personal Choices in Sustainable Style. The applications of this project on a “real world” basis are to inform, educate, and inspire others to evaluate their clothing consumption habits and encourage them to try out thrifting and upcycling. The pieces are made of preowned and thrifted clothing acquired via donation and thrifting. Though I am always learning the best way to do things, I am the designer, pattern maker, and seamstress for these couture pieces from start to finish. The production of my “Conscious Couture” collection was periodically photographed and documented, and I made recommendations in notes of how one could repeat my practices of construction.

I chose my topic per my interest in secondhand fashion, especially as it pertains to the circular economy model for a more sustainable apparel industry. The focus on upcycling within the research project is the means by which to involve a broader and more creative target market of consumers to join the sustainable fashion movement. My mentor Dr. Cheramie was a perfect candidate for this project for his recent accomplishment of a PhD Public Policy with a Sustainability Specialization. Dr. Cheramie often contributes to the sustainable fashion community on the UA Campus as well as throughout Northwest Arkansas.

I learned through this project that I have adept seamstress skills and that making beautiful things simply takes time and attention to detail. The topic of sustainable fashion is a broad one with many different avenues of research, so my focus on the secondhand sector of the market revealed that is a very minimally explored one. I discovered the some of the barriers as well as drivers for secondhand clothing consumption and was able to incorporate those incentives and risks into my research analysis.

Challenges will likely always arise when one sets forth to achieve an accomplishment, but the overcoming of these issues and the resilience thereafter determines the overall success of the project. I ran into challenges with the construction of my garment, such as having enough fabric to upcycle a design with over 30 pieces from a single discarded garment. I was prepared for this problem though and planning accordingly to save and preserve as much area of the deconstructed garment as possible, as well as flat lay testing to ensure my pattern pieces would fit in the minimal area for cutting. I also made sure to utilize as much of the deconstructed garment as possible, including the lining and bindings into the upcycled design. The waste of this project was minimal, which furthered the goal of the project’s core to reduce textile was by consuming secondhand clothing.

My mentor assisted me in the editing of the research project proposal by tailoring it towards an audience which can understand and then apply the findings to other research. Dr. Cheramie also helped in the grant writing process which allowed me to receive the Honors College Undergraduate Research Grant funds. This grant per the help of my mentor allowed me to undertake this research with the needed financial allowances to wholly commit myself to the project. Another assist with the project was Mrs. Stephanie Hubert, an AMPD faculty member who guided me with some of the fine details and advice in the construction of the garment, as well as instruction on how to effectively create the pattern for my upcycled garment design.

I plan to defend my creative thesis project in early April of 2021 to my committee, and in the final month of my college career, I hope to share the research with my peers in the form of a presentation in the AMPD annual Enclothe Fashion Show. This year due to COVID-19, the fashion show will most likely be a virtual presentation of some sort, so I hope to also film and photograph some digital content of the design to present in another manner (such as on social media) to share the findings of my project.