DIY UNICORN SOCK BOOTS | Make Thrift Buy #62

[Intro jingle]

This video is supported in part by Storyblocks.

Hello welcome to another Make Thrift Buy episode.

This is the show where you send in suggestions of mass-produced, super-expensive or just plain weird

fashion things that you found on the internet and then I try my best to recreate them.

Today's suggestion was sent in by Emily, who wanted to see me recreate these...

really...

interesting?

Yeah, we'll go with interesting - sock boots.

By the anti fashion, high fashion, meme-brand Vetements,

these sock boots featuring a unicorn heel, stick it to the man by only costing you a cool

$1500

So cheap right?!

Buuut as it turns out, the internet figured out how to recreate these sock boots for even cheaper

basically as soon as they hit the runways last year.

The Man Repeller showed just how Simple it was to DIY these back in April of 2016 -

And when Kanye West also released a line of sock boots,

an instagrammer called thenuvogue made these for a lot cheaper as well.

This DIY is so easy, simple and cost-effective, there is a bunch of people who recreated this look already.

"So Annika, why are you here then?"

"Are you here to tell us how to use Google?"

Well, no i'm not, because there's one thing that hasn't to my knowledge been the subject of any DIYs and that is the particular heel on this boot:

The unicorn heel. I may not be a huge fan of the sock boot look,

but I am pretty fond of that magical unicorn heel.

So let's get started!

Alright let's do the easy part first -

I thrifted this simple pair of black heels for $2, and I also found this pair of sports socks (I think?) for $5 at the thrift store.

The color seemed pretty similar to the original boots - I don't know who the heck AIRDS are?

My guess is that they're a random local sports team that I'll now be repping.

GOOOOO AIRDS!

I popped the shoe on and I pulled one sock over the toe of the boot pulling them on all the way.

Then I took them off because it was too hard for me to stretch the sock over the heel while i was wearing them.

So with the shoes off I stretched the socks up over the heel,

and I made sure the sock was pulled up as far as possible

and then I snipped a tiny hole with some scissors right where the heel is.

Note that the hole is much smaller than the actual heel width because socks stretch!

I stretched the sock up as far as possible around the heel

and then I cut small slits at the back and the front to widen the hole slightly

while continuing to pull the sock up, until the hole was wide enough to get to the top of the heel.

This frayed sock looks pretty bad around the edges so to make it look a little bit more schmick

I grabbed some fabric glue - I prefer this kind of glue over hot glue gun or craft glue

because it's specially made to fix fabric both to other fabrics and to basically any other surface as well.

So I painted fabric glue around the hole then I folded the raw frayed edges underneath like this all the way around the hole.

[Music]

And because these are slippery socks - and combined with high heels is just a faceplant waiting to happen -

I latticed some hot glue across the sole of the shoes and now I won't slip over when I wear them!

Other people have suggested attaching a circle of sandpaper to the bottom of the shoe -

Buut I didn't particularly wanna scratch up the wooden floors in my rental house

and it's also possible to buy these non-slip shoe pads which I think would be the perfect option

because they're specifically meant not to mark floors and stop you from falling over at the same time.

Or if you're feeling thrifty an old non-slip bath mat

or an old yoga mat cut up to the shape of the bottom of the shoe could work as well.

But anyway - now onto the unicorn heel!

So the heels on the original Vetements shoe are not only unicorn-themed but also shaped like a cigarette lighter

and I got these shoes before I realized that I wanted to make this unicorn heel

and there's no way that I'm gonna make these cone-shaped heels look anything like a cigarette lighter

but I can definitely still unicorn them up!

Also: Don't smoke, kids!

So to make this space unicorn heel a reality first I needed to make a space unicorn graphic

so I headed over to my favourite royalty-free graphics website: Storyblocks!

(Storyblocks is sponsoring this episode but all opinions are my own)

Ambitiously first I made a search for just space unicorn buuut that was a long shot -

still, this was surprisingly kind of close?

But I wanted a more active looking unicorn so I continued my search.

Anyway next i found myself a handsome looking unicorn,

some great space-scapes and a lens flare.

And then i got to work composing an image out of these

[Funky music]

Now if you did have shoes with rectangular block heels and you wanted to turn it into a cigarette lighter -

(But remember: Don't smoke, kids!)

You would want to make an image that looks like this -

print out two -

And then wrap it around the heel.

And in case anyone wants to recreate this heel, I have made this image available to download on my website

just resize it to roughly your own heel's measurements.

Buuut I like to make things unnecessarily complicated for myself

and I have this more complicated shaped heel to work with,

so I made a bunch of measurements and calculations With the heel and I ended up with a heel design that looks like this.

This will be the inside of the heel and this the outside.

The unicorns will be visible from the back.

I did leave the lighter part up the top here just to see what it would look like just in case,

but i will be getting rid of that later because nobody owns a lighter that's shaped like this.

(Don't smoke ki - )

Before printing them out i also increase the height and width of the heels by 10%

to make sure that I'd have enough of the print to work with,

and I printed out some extra space scenery too just in case.

I printed these out onto Lesley Riley's Transfer Artist Paper Which is material transfer paper

and then I cut these pieces out.

Next I'm going to transfer them to leftover scraps that I had of this canvas material.

To transfer the images to the fabric I covered them with some silk organza to prevent the fabric burning

and I pressed down on them hard at maximum heat setting

no steam for 20 to 30 seconds, which transferred the design

and then I cut them out.

To apply the design to the shoe, first I covered the inner heel with fabric glue

and I pressed the inner heel design down onto it.

Where the fabric overhung the heel I made small incisions in the fabric

and I pasted them down to the sides of the heel like this.

Buuut with the outside heel I realized that I hadn't accounted for the curvature

of the heel which left a gap in the side here.

So then I figured out the actual shape that it would be when it's laid flat by draping

bits of fabric down onto the heel,

tracing around them with some pen,

adding more pieces of fabric to this template with glue until I had this.

And this is the actual shape of the outside heel when it's laid down flat.

So back in photoshop i made a shape like this:

the reason it's not curvy here is that I just wanted to make sure I had enough space-scape to work with,

and I printed it out again and I used the template from before to cut it to the right shape.

After transferring each design to canvas again

I painted the outside heel with fabric glue and I carefully wrapped

the space unicorn design around the heel.

This was a little bit tricky but with lots of adjusting

and by cutting small slits in the edges of the curves of the fabric

I was able to lay it down onto the heel smoothly.

And then I cut off the excess bits with my tiny pair of embroidery scissors.

While I was doing this I realized that it would have looked a little bit neater

around the top of the design if I had done the heels first and then put the socks on afterwards,

but I think that seeing as I was making this all up on the spot it turned out pretty good.

Lastly, I wanted to seal the design and make it last a bit longer

so I grabbed this water based sealant Mod Podge

and I painted a thin layer over the top of the unicorn heels.

This makes them more weatherproof -

not that sock boots are ever going to be a good idea to wear while splashing around in puddles,

and it also gives the heels a subtly shiny finish.

So that's it! I'm done. Question is: "how did I go?"

[Electro swing music]

Yeah so I'll admit that the shoes still haven't totally won me over.

I was also having a little bit of trouble styling them -

at first I thought I'd try and keep it simple by pairing them with a little black dress...

but that didn't really work for me.

So then I thought, why not go all out and make a matching space unicorn t-shirt

and wear a beret that perfectly matches the color of the socks?

Maybe..? Yeah!

NOW I’ve got that ironically self-conscious I’m-so-street-fashion don’t-care-what-I-wear might-as-well-have-DIY’d-it-I’m-so-anti-establishment-but-I-paid-$1500-for-this Vetements LOOK

- except that we did make these for
ourselves. For about ten bucks

So I guess we've come full circle?

Or maybe Vetememes already has that one covered.
I don't even know anymore... [sigh]

…All of that is moot anyway because I can’t walk in heels for the life of me.

But at the very least, it was all worth it to end up with this unicorn t-shirt

which I AM very fond of and I'm wearing as I record this voice-over.

And as for the shoes… well… I learned a lot from upcycling them?

I can always chalk them up to DIY-experience?

But who knows. Maybe one day I’ll be invited to a fashion week

and then I can blow everyone’s minds with these babies and how effortlessly ironically anti-fashion I am.

Sooo.... what do you all think about this whole “super-ironic anti-luxury-dress-like-a-poor-person-but-only-if-you-have-thousands-of-dollars” trend?

Is it a clever bite at capitalism and consumerism, OR does it accomplish exactly what it claims to be against?

Is that the point of it?
Are they trolling us all?

Do I just not get it?
Is there anything to get?

I know you're all smart cookies so I'd really like to see some discussion down in the comments below.

Okay. So apart from sending me into a bit of an existential crisis,

obviously this episode wasn’t a super serious Make Thrift Buy recreation,

but I think that I did a pretty good job of recreating these nonetheless, so I’m gonna call this a:

[scissor sound, zipping sound]

Yeah, and if you do wanna make these but you don’t want to do an outrageous unicorn heel

then sock boots take literally about 5 minutes to make for yourself, with a pair of socks (sports socks or otherwise),

a pair of high-heels, scissors and some fabric glue.

I actually think if you don't spend thousands of dollars on them they can look pretty cool -

but bonus points for adding a whacky design to the heel as well.

Obviously, there’s some things which are done slightly better in the original -

I mean, you’d hope so, for one-and-a-half-thousand dollars -

It has proper soles, for instance, and so it is overall probably a little more weather-proof than mine.

I mean a little... Both are still… socks

But if we’re looking at this solely from a cost-effectiveness point of view… I think that my boots win.

And they certainly have that DIY shabby chic appeal... (cause they're actually DIY).

Plus with this green pair being out of stock anyway,

even if you did have a spare couple of thousand to blow,

making them for yourself is probably your best bet to get your hands on them.

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Anyway, that’s it for this episode – I’ll see you all in my next video!
Bye!

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