Upscale Ukay Ukay

For all you aliens out there, Ukay Ukay in english would be similar to shopping at garage sales or at the Salvation army. Basically they are discarded, overrun, returned clothes from all over the world (mostly Korea and the USA), that people buy, wash and wear. We have these old baggy shirts we use for sleeping, blouses only used twice, those fantastic almost/with tag attached brand new pieces, then the ever so rare gem of finding branded originals (PRADA/ Chanel anyone?) all for the low LOW prices ranging from a thousand pesos (for authentic branded items) to 10 pesos at your local market on Sundays.

What an Upscale ukayukay store looks like

We Filipinos are notorious for being cheap and not wanting to waste anything (so thrifty that we turn our old yellowed, torn, sad little pieces of whats left of our underwear into dishrags- disgusting I know). We might even consider our mentality a little Jewish if not a whole lot Chinese.

Its great for us, as we can cut the cost of clothing in half in order to splurge on more notable things like that fancy meal you're dying to have of those fabulous Italian shoes you saw in SM.

I, personally, have tried one whole year of buying only ukay2x and no one in the world suspected my clothes to be just "upcycled" (except my mom, who loves to do the same).

Finally, to get to the point, since this is the local red light district of learning how to sew and do other stuff, I will include teaching the more salient points in "upcycling" ukay ukay.

I had just recently purchase 3 items, 1 that I am wearing now, and the other 2 that I will "edit" for tutorial/I will wear them later purposes.

Also on another note, ukay ukay is nicknamed UK(pronounced You-Kaay) as in UK-United Kingdom. This is a way for a thrift shopper to tell another person in public (as an inside joke) that what they are wearing is a thrift store find. This was popularized in a TIDE detergent TV commercial where a mother bought an ukay-ukay yellowed white dress for her daughters prom. After a good TIDE wash, the girl arrived at her prom, radiant in her pristine white dress. AS people admired her, a friend asked her where the dress was purchased and she confidently answered "UK, of course!".

So read on, and Enjoy. If you have any SUGGESTIONS, COMMENTS, or IDEAS please email me maxmazing@ymail.com