Hi guys, so I have a story for you about maybe the most shameful thing I’ve worn in recent history. And trust me when I say that I’ve worn some real shit lately. I was at this industry cocktail party last month – nothing super crazy, it was just a small Portland clothing boutique mixer but you still wanna look cute AF at cocktail parties.
I was wearing this beautiful vintage silk blouse that I had found at an estate sale in Sellwood. It was this gorgeous ivory silk with embroidered flowers all along the collar and just generally exuded “casually aristocratic” in that way that makes you feel like you’ve finally got clothes together. I’m chatting it up with this buyer from one of the nicer downtown department stores, and she literally interrupts herself midsentence to say “Oh my god, I LOVE your top!
I have that same pattern on my dining room TABLECLOTH.” Um what? “No seriously, it’s from that home goods store on Hawthorne that sells all the bougie French linens. I got like a whole set for dinner parties.” -Uhmama- Tablecloth.
I was wearing a tablecloth.
Someone cut up a dining room tablecloth, sewed on some buttons, and called it a shirt.
Which is fine, this was sixty dollars and I still thought it came from an actual vintage clothing store. Once I stopped crying on the inside (because this blouse was still objectively fantastic) I got super fascinated by this concept.
If people are sewing tablecloths into blouses, what else could I be missing? ? It turns out: A LOT. That home store the buyer told me about became Ground Zero for what would become a total shopping education for me.
Walking into these stores differently. Appreciating textiles as garments, instead of just scouring for the best throw pillows. There’s an entire universe of shopping you’ve been missing if you haven’t tried looking at home goods with fashion eyes.
That linen throw that’s JUST the right length to be a wrap skirt? $45. Hand blocked cotton napkins that could make insanely cute pocket squares or bandanas? $12 for a set of 6. Vintage grain sacks with the coolest faded text on them that could make an awesome oversized tote? $38.
I reached out to stylist friends of mine to see if they had any advice, and it turns out I’m decades late to the party. Fashion people have been shopping home stores forever, they’re just SUPER protective of their sources and don’t want to give out the goods too easily. Most of them won’t let me quote them directly but one of them text me this back when I asked: “I haven’t purchased a scarf from an actual fashion store in probably 2 years.
Home stores have way better textiles and WAY better prices. Why would I pay $90 for a silk scarf when I can get a vintage textile for $30 that’s literally twice the size? ?” She sent me a photo of the wrap she was wearing, which is legit something I would’ve bought off the runway for at least $150. “ANTIQUE HOME STORE IN HOOD RIVER! COST ME $22 and I get compliments whenever I wear it.” So…. tablecloths-as-fashion is a THING? ?
Mind. Blown. Ok but seriously, once you start looking at home stores for clothes you’ll never NOT see things you want to hack.
Garments. Blankets. Shower curtains.
Bed sheets. All of this luxurious fabric just sitting there in stores marked “homegoods” not “fashion.” And not only is the quality of the textiles often much nicer than you’ll find at clothing stores at that price point, but it’s already been CREATED. There’s no need for a designer to profit off of his or her vision of a silk scarf when you can cut up an old tablecloth yourself.
Win/win. I found this quaint little import shop downtown that I’ve walked past like a billion times but never really noticed before. They specialise in Moroccan and Turkish textiles, so lots of handmade loomed fabrics with amazing texture and these beautiful almost-imperfect asymmetries that you just can’t get from modern machine production. “We get tons of fashion girls in here,” the owner tells me when I explain my little project. “There’s this one designer who buys our vintage indigo ALL THE TIME.
Half her collection each season is inspired by things she saw here.” Needless to say, price points on homegoods versus clothing are FUCKING WILD when you realise that it’s literally the exact same materials. A gorgeous hand loomed cotton throw will run you sixty bucks in the home section. Turn that SAME cotton fabric into a dress or jacket and you’re looking at 300 bones at a clothing boutique.
I’m not sure what that says about how clothing is priced versus home goods, but ugh. Unless we’re talking stuff you can wear-as-is- scarves, wraps, kimono-style shirts, you’re going to need someone to help you hack your vision. Which is where tailors come in.
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And let me tell you, trying to find someone willing and able to make your crazy vintage grain sack dreams come true is a quest all on its own. Luckily I found Mrs. Chen, who owns this little hole in the wall alterations shop down the street from me.
I brought her this gorgeous indigo cloth I found and asked her if she could make it into a jacket. She looked at it for all of two seconds before responding “Sure, be back next week.” jacket came out amazing. Totally magazine/editor circa $250.
First time I wore it I got complimented by like 3 separate people who ALSO recognised where it had come from. One guy I was talking to thought it was an expensive sustainable brand that regularly retails for FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS A PIECE. Needless to say, it doesn’t work for EVERYTHING.
Upholstery fabrics are generally TOO thick to work for clothing, unless that’s the look you’re going for. Same with some of the more delicate vintage textiles. I found this gorgeous vintage lace tablecloth that would’ve made the cutest effortlessly-simple blouse, but it was so dang fragile I was probably going to kill it the first time I washed it.
I’ll probably still take the plunge because holy crap the material is money, but I learned my lesson there. Same thing with furniture fabrics. They can look amazing, but generally have the exact opposite problem of being way too thin to work for clothing.
Couch material is not blouse material, no matter how hard you want it to be. Though I have also successfully hacked up some vintage linen shirts intended for table settings into cute crop tops, so go figure. But when it works, OH DOES IT WORK.
And part of what I love about hacking clothes from homegoods is that it feels different than just clothes shopping. Maybe it’s because you know this awesome new top you’ve got is one of a kind, or maybe it’s just the thrill of knowing you’ve cracked some shit nobody else knows about… but these hacked-together homegoods pieces always seem to elicit more questions and compliments than my regular clothes. Trust me when I say there are more crossover opportunities than just textiles.
Ceramic beads sold as home décor make great chunky necklaces once you drill some holes in them. Curtain tassels = earrings. Hell even some of the brass pulls can work as statement necklaces if that’s your thing.
But my new favourite hobby is scouring antique stores for vintage workwear fabrics. Grain sacks. Canvas.
Textiles that were intended to be used and worn as hell and now have decades of badass built-in character. Most people who shop that store buy the sack material for rustic home décor things, but I keep imagining jackets. Jackets everywhere.
I’m absolutely NEVER shopping for clothes “normally” again. I mean, why would I pay big brand prices for mass-produced-at-best textiles when I can get one-of-a-kind, high quality stuff for a fraction of the price and have it sewn into whatever I want?? ?
Not to mention, the reactions I get from people when they learn where my clothes come from are PRICELESS.
Fashion people are obsessed with me taking old tablecloths and turning them into wearable art.
It’s like I’ve figured out some secret about the industry that nobody else wants you to know. Which, sort of true.
The downside to all of this is that I literally cannot walk past a home store without going in to look at their textiles ever again. It adds like 45 minutes to my grocery shopping trips. Also my flat is slowly becoming inundated with beautiful fabrics that I haven’t had time to turn into clothes yet.
BUT I EAT DOUGHNUTS FOR BREAKFAST EVERY MORNING SO TIME IS NOT A CONCEPT WE CAN CURRENTLY CONSIDER. If you decide to hop on this bandwagon yourself, take it slow. Find things that can work as-is first, like scarves and wraps, so you can get a feel for shopping fabric with style in mind.
Once you start seeing things…well, you’ll see things. Just please don’ttell everyone about your insider sources right away. Some secrets should remain secrets. 😉
