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How to customize a denim jacket?

DIY or Do It Yourself has become very trendy in recent years. A real addiction for those who approach it, it affects many areas, including clothing, everyday products, cosmetics, etc.

Thus, in the era of this movement, we will try here to guide you in the customization of a denim jacket.

Why customize your denim jacket?

To breathe new life into a vintage piece

What could be better than DIY to give new life to a vintage jacket? To do this, various methods are at your disposal:add color with flash paints and to modernize it, or add patterns or fabric. Even easier, you can simply stick iron-on patches on it.

To have a garment that really suits us

But you can use DIY for a completely different purpose:to make your own creation, to take charge of your own style. In this case, you will have to dare, create a garment that will please you and that will correspond to you deep within yourself. The simplest technique in this case is to locate in various magazines, journals or on the internet, the patterns and trends that suit you and reproduce them!

Ideas too stylish to customize your denim jacket

Add fringe

This type of jacket is easily made by yourself! In addition to being easy, it also saves money. All you need is a seam ripper, a pair of scissors or the essential tool that is the cutter and an old loose and somewhat vintage denim jacket. You can also find some very beautiful ones at Vestiaire Collective or Vide Dressing. By looking carefully in empty dressing rooms or flea markets, you will surely find a beautiful vintage Levis jacket for a perfect 80s look, authentic and stylish as you wish! Then choose, at your convenience, between fine fringes or larger, coarser ones, on the sleeves or on the back and front of the denim jacket to customize.


Kavana Emporium Via Etsy

For thinner ones, first define the exact length at which you plan to place the hem. Once done, cut to the desired height and use the seam ripper or a needle to undo the threads of the jacket. Be careful, do not go up too high so that the frays are not disproportionate to the size of the jacket. Then equip yourself with a sewing machine to make a breakpoint and avoid enlarging the fraying. Then put your jacket in the machine, for a better result.
In addition, if you dare to go all out and opt for fringes, you will have to give a first horizontal cutter stroke at the height of the desired length, then cut the jacket vertically to make the fringes, leaving about a centimeter between each fringe.

Cut the desired fringes from the scraps of fabric, then sew them on the sleeves as desired.

ScarabeeFashion via Etsy

Embroidery application

Customizing your denim jacket has never been easier, especially when it comes to embroidery or fabrics . All you need is lace, ribbons, fabric, etc.

Choose between embroidering a personal message on the back of your knit jacket, sequins and flowers on the sleeves, more elaborate designs such as paintings or drawings can also be embroidered on the back of the jacket in question. Also use, for more fun, colored pompoms that you can place on the jacket as you wish.

Or for convenience, opt for iron-on patches representing flowers, animals, symbols, or other ideas as you can see here.

Lighz Art via Etsy

To do this, get a needle and thread, as well as a drum, a pair of scissors (thread cutters) and a style to fabrics to reproduce patterns and messages with greater precision.

Use backstitch, ideal for writing a word. Then choose the area of ​​the jacket where you want to embroider, draw the pattern with the help of the fabric pen, then center the part to be embroidered in the center of the drum. Then prepare the thread and the needle, stitch the fabric from the inside at the beginning of the word or pattern, take out the needle, then stitch 5mm further inwards. Then prick outward 5 mm further from the entry point, stretch the thread to prick in the same hole as the second. Continue.

More sophisticated, the chain stitch remains accessible to beginners. You must start the embroidery from the inside of the fabric by passing the needle and the thread to one end of the pattern and then stretching the thread inwards. Bring the needle out a little further by passing it through the loop of the thread, pull without forcing to tighten the chain. Continue.

Adding rhinestones

For this, you will, of course, need a denim jacket, strong glue, a pair of scissors, and various kinds of rhinestones, the whatever color you want, although in my opinion silver or pearl looks better on jeans.

Outline the shapes where you want to put the rhinestones with a pencil. Cut out the outline of the rhinestones, if these were purchased already assembled, or arranged one by one on the lines you drew. Then stick them on the jacket. And that's it, you're done!

There are also sewing rhinestones, which will certainly last longer, but which will require more tedious work.

Hand painting

There are various types of paints that you can apply to your fabrics to customize them.

  • Acrylic fabric paint in pots is undoubtedly the easiest to use and the one most often purchased. Specially designed for textiles, it is fixed using the heat of an iron. However, it does not stiffen the fabric in any way and the colors retain a uniform appearance. In addition, the colors mix quite easily, so with only the primary ones, you can make all possible combinations.
  • Acrylic paint for fabric in a tube, on the other hand, is the one we use at school, in art classes, or when we are small for recreation. It sets naturally, without special intervention, and dries quickly. Nevertheless, it risks stiffening and therefore flaking.
  • Then there is the textile transfer paint. It comes in the form of a tube with a tip specially designed to make fine lines as if it were a felt pen. You must then paint the desired pattern on a plastic sheet, let it dry, peel off and then fix the pattern on the fabric with an iron.
  • Finally, there is also a puffy textile paint. Despite packaging similar to transfer paint, it has more varied colors and effects with a fluorescent, glittery, phosphorescent range. Quite pasty, the paint spreads in thin lines but it is still quite difficult to obtain a completely smooth surface.