Add Your Own Touch to Fashion by Designing your Own Clothes

For those who can sew, or know someone who can, today's high prices in stores shouldn't deter you from keeping teens in the latest fashions. A review of this year's runway shows demonstrates how easy this can be with a little ingenuity and a few pictures. Fortunately, bright, bold, beautiful colours and animal prints are back in a big way so taking advantage of retro prints can be a big plus.

By pursuing ready-made garments at thrift stores it's easy to find clothing that contains prints right off today's runway. With a few pictures in hand, matching fabrics to clothing found in these stores is easy. The trick is to buy the largest sizes possible so plenty of material is readily available for whatever designs are being replicated. This is a great family activity as younger fashionistas may see something that fits their style better than parents.

Once clothing is brought home then it should be sorted by patterns and colours that are complimentary to each other. In current fashion trends it's okay to mix stripes with plaids and prints with leather, jean or corduroy material. In fact, it's preferred. This is relatively easy to do especially if photos of the latest fashions are readily available. In fact, there are stores now specialising in remaking outdated garments then selling the new couture looks at discount prices.

Once material has been sorted and patterns reflecting chosen designs have been selected, clothing should be deconstructed in order to determine how to best utilise the available material. This was best demonstrated by Christian Siriano in Project Runway who took the sleeves from blue jeans in order to make the lower part of the legs on a pair of pants. These were some of the first "skinny jeans" created and have turned into a huge fashion trend ever since then.

When creating fashion trends for teenagers it's vitally important to not only look at the styles they selected but, perhaps more importantly, their body type. What looks good on runway models that average between sizes 0-2 may not look good on a teenager who wears a size 8 or larger! Therefore, helping them educate themselves on what will look good on them based on their body size and shape should be the first step.

Once the new designs are drawn up and then decided upon it becomes a matter of cutting new pieces from available fabrics and putting them together in order to create a brand new, trendy look that appears as if it has just come from the runway. This will also encourage teenagers to become fashion forward, in this way discovering innovative ideas that may, as yet, be undiscovered.

This is also a great time to get teenagers involved in the actual styling, designing and sewing process itself. Skill in these fields can spark imagination as well as create inspiration to pursue a career in the fashion industry. It also helps build confidence and increasing feelings of satisfaction knowing they were able to create their own clothing. By watching adverts, regular visits to the local fabric store can also help to enhance garments by combining new materials with those that have been reclaimed.

Finding new methods and ways to keep teenagers dressed in the latest fashions with ever-decreasing available resources requires ingenuity, creativity and, often, thinking outside-the-box. Cheap fabrics is available everywhere, whether you search around your local high street or by visiting websites online. We just often don't recognise the potential in creating something unique and stylish from the remnants of something old and then transforming it in to a garment worthy of the catwalks.