Fifteen-year-old Mishelle Adeyemi has been sewing since grade two. Now, the teen spends her days scanning the op shops of Ballarat for goodies she can alter to make unique to her style.
“I have one orange-black sheath dress that was two sizes too big for me, I had no idea what I was doing at the time, so I grabbed my seam ripper, cut the sides off and restitched them and got a new black zipper to go with it,” she told the Brolga. “It's my favourite dress to wear to celebrations.”
On Saturday, (October 24), Adeyemi is teaching other young people in Ballarat to do the same.
What’s going on: Upcycle October Day will be held at the Ballarat Library and is a free, youth-led event for people aged 12 to 25. It’s run by the City of Ballarat’s Youth Events Team, and Adeyemi is one of its volunteers.
Participants will take part in hands-on workshops including basic sewing, clothing alterations, tote bag making, 3D-printed button design and custom T-shirt transfers. A community clothing swap will run alongside them.
Attendees are encouraged to bring clean clothes they no longer wear, and second-hand pieces will be available for those who have nothing to swap.
Taking on fast fashion: Adeyemi shops for second hand clothes frequently and has developed an eye for a good buy. She wants to challenge the idea that clothes need to be expensive to be appealing.
“In primary school, I would often go out shopping with my friends who would constantly spend a majority of their money on clothes they would wear once, then let it disappear into the abyss of their huge wardrobes,” she said, arguing there’s nothing wrong with wearing clothes previously owned by someone else.
“I usually go to Vinnies or Salvos and the best part is, so many people drop off clothes that are in great condition.”
Adeyemi hopes attendees will leave with the skills to repair and patch their own clothes, and that those skills will spread beyond the event. Participants will also make sewing kits to share what they have learned with others.
Why does it matter? Queensland University of Technology (QUT) research estimates the clothing industry produces between 2 and 8 percent of global carbon emissions, and relies on synthetic materials that pollute landfills and run-off water with microplastics.
Professor Rowena Maguire said in a 2025 QUT article Australians buy an average of 56 new items of clothing every year and more than 200,000 tonnes of clothing ends up in landfill.
“Add to this the questionable labour practices where these items are produced, the export of unwanted, often unusable, clothing to poor countries where much of it ends up in landfill, and we have an ongoing human rights and environmental disaster on our hands,” she added.
Local impacts: In nearby Castlemaine, The Good Op Shop’s Tiffany Inglis receives 200kg of donations every week.
Those clothes typically take about three weeks to sell, but some are more popular than others. Items made with synthetic materials tend to stay on the rack longer than pieces made with natural fibres.
“We accept everything, but prefer no Anko [the Kmart clothing brand]. We have a $1 Anko rack out the front,” she told the Brolga. “The quality of items is decreasing, but we still get good ones among the mix.”
Doing their part: The Good Op Shop encourages young people to prioritise second hand shopping, and repairing or altering clothes they already own.
Inglis hosts an annual upcycled fashion parade with themes and prizes each September, as well as the Upcycling Award, a competition with cash prizes for the best altered clothing creations. Entries for the 2026 competition are open until 4pm October 31.
Spreading the word: Tamara Di Mattina, the creator of October’s Buy Nothing New Month, launched the movement 15 years ago during her own journey of shopping second hand only year-round.
“If people could see where all this stuff ends up, I think most people would rethink when they click to purchase something and look at the wonderful alternatives,” she told the Brolga.
Di Mattina said while op shops are a good start, living in regional areas can limit the options available, and encouraged shoppers to look at online second hand sites like Vinted or Facebook Marketplace to shop for clothes and other items.
“All the stuff that we have is modern, it's new, it's in good condition. We can buy better quality things second hand than we could afford to buy new.”
City of Ballarat’s Upcycle October Day is from 10am to 3pm. Attendees can register online. More information on The Good Op Shop’s Upcycling Award can be found on their Facebook page.