DIY Style: How to Fix Clothing, Relacing a Zipper with Ribbon

Sometimes what seems like an unsalvageable piece of clothing, is really a few minutes away from being a statement item. If you're feeling like being creative and willing to get a tiny bit crafty, there are ways of redefining old clothes, or those "huh?" or "if only" items you see on the deep sale items at stores. For example you can dye clothes that have been stained (just go darker), or in my successful case this weekend (hey, there are times when the reinvention doesn't work out, but you've gotta keep trying!) -- I took a $7 piece from a discount store with a missing zipper and merely "laced" it together with some ribbon, and made what I thought turned into a Helmut Lang-type piece. Not bad, right?

So have some fun and see if you can find another way to re-fashion something. You may just surprise yourself. Here's my DIY Style video, with a step-by-step pictorial to follow:

Step-by-Step: Replacing a Zipper on a Leather Shirt by Lacing with Ribbon

1) Here is the $7 top with the zipper missing on the side. The leather is very soft and thin, which made me decipher that it would be easy to cut.

Leather top by S.A.S., bought for $7 at Marshall's!

2) I measured the width of the grosgrain ribbon and then marked the sides of the top where I wanted to make the slits, where the ribbon would be fed -- like shoe laces. I used a white eye pencil which I rubbed off afterwards, but preferably you would use a tailoring pencil.

Three tools needed: Sharp scissors, tailoring pencil for marking, and ribbon.

3) I folded the top at the mid points of where the slits were going to be, then cut.

The slits are made for lacing.

4) After all the cuts were made, I laced the ribbon through -- leaving ample ribbon at the bottom to create a nice half-bow. I made another half-bow at the top for a design point.

Lacing is done and the top is now fixed in 20 minutes!

5) The completed top:

I'm a happy fashion camper!

-- N.C.