Cleveleys shop owner's green dream to offer red hot repurposed fashion

A Thornton business woman is looking to make the fashion industry a little bit greener with top quality repurposed and revamped dresses.
Clare Eastwood of Mirror Mirror modelling one of the gowns at the shopClare Eastwood of Mirror Mirror modelling one of the gowns at the shop
Clare Eastwood of Mirror Mirror modelling one of the gowns at the shop

Clare Eastwood has opened her shop Mirror Mirror Clothing on Crescent West in Cleveleys to offer dresses, dressmaking and alterations.

The former Blackpool and The Fylde College fashion and textiles student went on to London where she worked for various fashion and high street names including a vintage label but returned to the Fylde coast to work part time while she had her children.

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She said: “I started working from home and the business grew and grew. Then I had a place in St George’s Lane, Stitchworks, for quite a while.

Mirror Mirror in CleveleysMirror Mirror in Cleveleys
Mirror Mirror in Cleveleys

“But the shop here in Cleveleys became available and it was too good an opportunity to miss. I have already seen more customers who did not know I was working in the area until now.”

And the newly opened shop got a visit from Labour Shadow Chancellor John McDonald who was in the area for a Labour conference and was out and about to support Small Business Saturday. He talked to her about her work and about the problems small businesses face.

This month, reports have criticised the £28bn fashion industry for being wasteful and encouraging a throw-away culture among consumers.

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Clare said although she creates a lot of her garments new from scratch many are re-purposed as part of her idea for the business was to encourage people to think twice about tossing away clothes simply because they are not this year’s colour or style to help the environment.

She said: “It is so important for the environment to recycle clothes and to encourage people to think about the impact. We need to make do a bit more. I love to re-invent dresses.

“It is amazing what people will throw away. I have had a couple of wedding dresses in which I have completely take apart and re designed. You would not believe how expensive some of the materials can be, the lace and the beading.

"We also have dresses that are a little bit 80s looking, but the fabric is amazing. You can do such things as making a dress smaller and changing its shape to make it better.

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“And I will be running make do and mend sewing courses starting on Thursday for people to learn the skills.”

She is hoping to help inspire fashion students by offering paid internships doing pattern cutting, sewing and learning to take an item form design to manufacture.