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Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Fashion, upcycled: Jenny Allen creates new clothes from thrift-store donations
By Allison Arthur of The Leader
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
 | | Jenny Allen holds up a copy of a New York Times fashion page to show how her panel skirt is similar to a newfangled fall skirt. Photo by Allison Arthur |  |  | | Flora, age 23 months, is happy in her purple Madrone Berries outfit and headband. |
"Look at her skirt. Does it remind you of anything?" said Jenny Allen as she held a copy of the March 19 New York Times fashion page next to one of her skirts.
Yes, actually, that fancy seams-showing skirt looks a lot like one of Allen's serged-seam panel skirts.
Except for the fabric.
The skirt featured on the fashion page is made out of some newfangled fancy, stiff fabric. The skirt Allen is modeling, and which she made herself, was created from used clothing that Goodwill sells by the pound. And it looks a whole lot more comfortable.
Madrone Regenerated Clothing is Allen's one-woman business enterprise based in Port Townsend. Only one store in Port Townsend, Monsoon, sells her clothing retail (prices range from $5 to $75), but it's available wholesale online at www.etsy.com under the user name madroneberries.
"We are the 're' generation: reducing, reusing, recycling!" the website proclaims.
Allen's business is also both green and growing.
"The new term you'll hear more about is upcycle," says Allen of crafting new products out of old products, turning something that has no value into something of value.
That new skirt she made out of Goodwill leftovers retails for $75.
Everything she makes is one of a kind. No two bubble pants or bubble rompers - she's designed them as well - will ever look alike. No two women's panel skirts will ever be identical.
"I feel like what I'm doing now is in the spirit of my grandmother. A hundred years ago, nothing got thrown away. Everything was repurposed," Allen said, explaining that her grandmother taught her how to sew, knit and crochet when she was very young.
And she's also been creating things to sell since she was a very little girl. In fact, she clearly remembers the "Magic Attic" where her mother kept all kinds of craft projects.
One time, she found a jar of buttons, put tiny dried flowers in them and sold them as "button bouquets."
These days, she goes to a Goodwill store near Seattle that sells clothing by the pound. Most people wear gloves to dive through the big bins of clothing, which can't be sold because of stains or rips. Allen likes to feel the fabric, so she's careful to wash her hands once she plucks fun polka dot, striped and flowered clothing from the bins.
Six big plastic bags of old clothes cost her about $80. Before taking them to her studio to sort, she washes, dries and folds all the clothes.
"And this is my palette," she said of stacks of neatly folded and color-separated jersey knits and wool sweaters. She's also growing a collection of fleece and linen. She's excited at the prospect of making little linen dresses for girls and colorful fleece blankets.
"Sometimes it's just perfect, and sometimes it's a struggle," she says of matching fabrics for her baby, toddler, girls' and women's clothing creations. She also does a few things for boys.
Because she's been sewing for 23 years, she says, she's confident - bold even - about matching colors and fabrics.
And she loves the reaction she gets when people see her creations for the first time.
"What I love is when I have things in my booth and people walk in and start giggling. It's fun. It's funny. It's beautiful," she says of the children's clothes that invariably have a leaf or daisy on them.
"I've adopted the leaf. It just started showing up on my clothes. That and the daisy," she said of contrasting leaves she sprinkles on creations for both children and women.
Allen is always on the lookout for fashion trends, including predictions about color. She reads The New York Times fashion pages to see what's new for the fall. Leather stirrup leg warmers being touted on the runway now for next fall look interesting, she says.
"One of the things people haven't been able to do in eco-fashion is to have sex appeal," Allen says.
So take a look at her Zig-Zag T-shirt. She strips off one T-shirt and slips on another, more colorful one that incorporates a burgundy with brown and accentuates her good figure.
"Now we have sexy. We have boobs, yeah," she says while looking in the mirror at one of her own tops.
"I like to wear my clothes," she says, "and the kids clothes are just so cute.
"My skirts can be worn on any panel. There's no front or back," she says of the versatile panel skirt.
Eco-fashion is supposed to be friendly toward the environment as well as comfortable to wear, she says.
"It's something that feels good to buy because you are not adding to the heaviness of producing new fiber," she says. Even new clothes made out of organic cotton technically are hard on the environment, because there's the cost of producing and shipping the fiber, she says.
"It's a huge carbon footprint even to buy a T-shirt," she says of buying new clothes out of organic fibers. "My family is completely clothed in recycled clothing, whether it's made by me or not."
On occasion, Allen says, she hears people say others are doing similar things to what she's doing.
"What I feel about that is that there are so many fibers and styles, I don't feel an anxiety about competition," she says, adding that people often tell her that she really "gets" eco-fashion.
"Part of what I'm doing is promoting earth consciousness, energy consciousness and resource consciousness. I think that's a really important message to me," says the mother of three.
"Some people will say they can do it, and I say, 'Go for it.' Others say, 'Oh, I could never do that myself.'"
Allen spends about 30 hours a week sewing and another 30 hours a week marketing her clothes on the web or working at farmers' markets. Ballard's Sunday market is year-round, and she's found success there. She's planning to add the Saturday market in Edmonds this spring.
As for the sour economy, Allen says she sees more people wanting to spend their money wisely.
"There are always going to be people who have money to spend. And people are becoming more conscious about what they spend their money on. People want quality, not quantity."
Quality - although made out of post-consumer used material - is what she offers with every garment she creates, Allen says.
It's not just a fashion statement. It's a lifestyle statement.
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