A woman showed off her sewing skills and entranced the internet when she transformed an old nightdress into a must-have item.
Indira Viswanathan, 23, lives in Australia, and has been sewing since high school, where she took textiles. She told Newsweek: it was "the only subject I enjoyed."
Now she has her own fashion brand, Ivy By India, and a large following on her TikTok account @indoodle, where she shows off her creations and offers custom orders.
One popular series on her channel is Thrift Flip Thursday, where, as she explained in a video shared on October 24 with 124,000 likes, "I take something kind of ugly that I probably would not wear, and I flip it and turn it into something I actually would wear."
In this case, it was a white patterned old-fashioned nightdress, light and flowy, reaching past Viswanathan's knees and with a high collar.
And the camera then switched to the final product: a sweet two-piece set, with a long flowing skirt and tight strappy top showing off Viswanathan's figure.
TikTok users were in awe, and one of hundreds of commenters writes in all-caps: "WHEN I TELL YOU MY JAW DROPPED."
One called Viswanathan "magic," and another praised her as "so talented."
"The way I gasped," one said, as another asked: "What kinda sorcery is this?"
Viswanathan told Newsweek she was studying fashion in Melbourne when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, and when "all alone during lockdowns" she had nothing to occupy her time but a sewing machine—which she worked at "all day every day."
She set up her online brand, first focusing on swimwear, and when the pandemic eased took to the street to sell all sorts of clothing at market stalls.
"I then moved to Paris in 2023 to do a business fashion course, while still sewing every day in my little Parisian apartment," Viswanathan told Newsweek.
"I felt so inspired for thrift flipping during my time there as I found myself finding amazing thrift stores in Paris and all around Europe."
Caring deeply about sustainable fashion, her Thrift Flip Thursday idea came about after she recognized some pieces while thrifting that could "have all the potential in the world with some altering," and set out to transform the pieces herself.
"I have been posting my thrift flip and sewing creations on TikTok since 2021, and am so happy people are loving the content," Viswanathan told Newsweek.
"It genuinely makes me so happy to see people excited to watch my thrift flips, and even inspire other people to sew themselves."
The global resale apparel market has grown massively in recent years, with higher interest in thrift shopping as well as online marketplaces such as Vinted and Depop. In 2020, the global market was estimated at $20 billion, according to Statista.
For now, Viswanathan is focusing on growing her clothing brand by incorporating repurposed clothes, but acknowledges "finding a way to do this on a larger scale is quite difficult."
"I think this would be such an important new/sustainable approach to the fashion industry and it's my goal to continue thrift flipping and hopefully incorporate that into my business somehow."
She added: "I think it's such an important message to put out there to get people to move away from fast fashion."
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