Fashion changes move faster and faster these days. Not that long ago a season for fashion was literally that – the spring season was in spring and lasted until the summer fashions came out. Today fast fashion has changed this, with new colors and styles rolling through every few weeks. But bigger trends tend to stay a bit longer, some of them lasting for several seasons or even a year or two. One fashion trend that came in a few years ago and looks to be hanging on is to create your own fashion jewelry. The move towards personalized jewelry is growing every day. It is seen through such established companies as Trollbeads or by stringing your own necklace with wholesale beads bought online. Both are part of this growing DIY movement.
A big part of this trend is seen beyond fashion to every aspect of our lives. The handmade movement began in the last decade or so with the growing interest in sewing, knitting and other old fashion skills. Some think that this return to creating your own comes from a weariness of having everything made cheaply. Today’s clothes are put together in far off lands in sweatshop environments that many consumers abhor if they only knew. In a world where everything you could want is premade and by the thousands, handmade means what you wear are yours and yours alone. From the rise in popularity of woodworking skills to the recent growth in the sales of sewing machines, this newfound interest in the handmade is being felt.
One of the big success stories for this return to handmade is the website Etsy. A marketplace for all things handmade, the website has been a huge success. Crafters from around the world have a place to sell their goods and buyers who love the one of a kind end result can cruise the site looking for treasures. In a world where the earrings you buy at the store are just one pair like thousands more, this kind of shopping gives many buyers real satisfaction.
Beyond the purchase of handmade goods, the trend towards DIY encourages many to indulge in a craft they may never have considered before. YouTube is filled with how to videos on everything from that first knitting project to making your own home. Never before has information been so easy to share and curiosity so easy to fulfill. If you have always wanted to try your hand at making your own pearl necklace, now is the time to buy those pearls online, pull up a video on pearl knotting and make it yourself.
So while many still continue to buy the majority of their fashion as ready to wear clothing, not everything needs to be so cut and dry. Adding your own handmade jewelry to that fashion sweater will give it a look that no one else can match. And after all, isn’t the point of fashion to give us an ability to make an individual statement about ourselves with our look?