7 Free Tutorials With DIY Ideas to Easily Repair Your Clothes

Give your designer clothes a second chance and learn new DIY craft techniques with these experts

More and more people are getting interested in creative movements such as upcycling to give useful but used objects a new life.

You too can save money while expressing yourself creatively, and upgrading your designer clothes. With your crafty work and DIY techniques, you’ll also gain a unique wardrobe that truly reflects your personality.

But before diving in the free tutorials that will help you renew your wardrobe, learn more about concepts like upcycling, circular economy and sustainable design.

What is Upcycling?

Upcycling is a recent term and it is used to describe the techniques that encompass the idea of transforming residues or refuse to create new items of value. It can be applied to all sorts of designing or manufacturing: furniture, garments, textiles, decorative objects, etc.

As fashion designer and Domestika teacher, Ximena Corcuera (@ximenacorcuera) puts it: "We have reached a historically crucial moment, in which functioning in the accelerated and excessive way that we are accustomed to is no longer sustainable. We need to change our way of going about things, now more than ever".

Upcycling is an ideal tool to start creating changes in our consumption habits. "It’s an excellent starting point to give a second life to stuff and promotes a circular economy where nothing is discarded. As for how to upcycle, this depends on your imagination!", says Ximena, who teaches the course Sustainable Fashion: Get into Upcycling.

What is Circular Economy?

Circular economy is a strategy that tries to reduce both the use of raw materials and the production of waste. With a linear economy, what we usually do is extract, create, and then throw away after use.

What a circular economy proposes is to create, use, and then recycle. It is a cycle where everything complies with circularity; that is, it re-enters the chainand does not end up as waste. Upcycling is another expression of this trend.

You can read more on this subject in this blog post, where creative director and graphic designer Núria Vila Punzano (@nuriavilapunzano) - who teaches the Domestika course Introduction to Sustainable Graphic Design - explains how apply this trend to graphic design.

And What is Sustainable Design?

Sustainability is something people think about on a daily basis, now more than ever. But if you’re a product designer, your environmental commitment needs to be much more significant. The principle of sustainability, which means meeting our current needs without damaging our future prospects, should always be something you consider.

In the following video (english subtitles are available), Núria Vilar shares her thoughts on sustainable design and analyzes how taking it into consideration when designing products for your own or other brands, benefits us all. Watch!

7 Tutorials With DIY Ideas To Repair Clothes

Next, experts in DIY give you useful tips in seven tutorials that will embellish your clothes. If you want to read the full instructions for each tutorial, just click on its red title.

Upcycling Tutorial: 5 Hacks to Transform your Clothes

Crochet designer and author Emma Friedlander-Collins, also known as Steel and Stitch (@steelandstitch) specializes in upcycling and remaking objects.

Here, she shares a few simple ways we can extend the life of our wardrobe by using simple techniques to create pieces that are original and full of personality.

Embroidery Tutorial: How to Create an Appliqué

The embroidery for appliqués process will give your pieces more and new uses by making it possible to transfer them to all kinds of surfaces and clothes.

Ana María Restrepo (@anamaria_10), the brains behind the textile design brand Amarpo, shares her techniques and advice on opening up the possibilities for your embroidery pieces.

Embroidery Tutorial: How to Embroider Simple Flowers

Loly Ghirardi AKA Señorita Lylo (@srtalylo) managed to unite her two passions years ago: graphic design and embroidery.

In this tutorial you’ll learn a basic stitch to embroider flowers that will look great in a tshirt or even a pair of jeans. You can also download the flowers pattern by clicking on the link above.

Fashion Design Tutorial: Tips to Customize Your Sneakers

Sneakers can be an ideal canvas on which to express your creativity. However, working on fabric can be a challenge, both when painting and when keeping it clean and protected.

That’s why Juan Pablo Bello, Art Director and founder of MYSNKRS Customs (@mysneakerscl) teaches us how to customize the laces of our shoes, apply and paint details, and protect our design so that we can wear them for longer.

Upcycling Tutorial: Clothes Printing

Another option to transform your clothes is to embrace color and unleash your creativity with stencil and spray paint.

Fashion designer Krizia Robustella (@kriziarobustella) shows you how to create drawings that will decorate your clothes, transform them into templates, and add different colors and textures through simple exercises that will lead to extremely varied results.

Upcycling Tutorial: How to start patching your clothes

Patches are a canvas on which you can paint, draw, and embroider: they allow us to extend the life of our favourite garments in style.

Gabriela Martinez, specialist in embroidery and textile art and creator of Ofelia & Antelmo (@ofeliayantelmo), show you the first step in fixing and adding personality to our torn or stained clothes with patches that you can even embroider if you so fancy.

Embroidery Tutorial: How to Care for Hand Embroidered Clothing

Kseniia Guseva, also known as @faimyxstitch, is a hand embroidery artist from Saint Petersburg, Russia. According to Kseniia, “embroidery makes everything better.”

She is particularly passionate about architecture–and has created over 100 city patterns; upcycling; and customizing different items, such as jeans, bags, T-shirts, and even trainers. In this tutorial, she shares a number of simple and essential tips on how to make sure your pieces last.

If you are interested in exploring more fashion design and upcycling tips and techniques, check out Domestika courses here.

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