Fashion Tips - or How To Look Better Than Everyone Else And Still Be A Cheapskate

First off, this isn't a lesson on how to apply yr makeup, or what labels to wear - you can figure that out for yrself. There's liking fashion, and then there's being a slave to it. This is just a little collection of ideas for adding some interest to yr wardrobe.

Recycle non-fashion things. Anything you can find in your own bedroom can doubtless be re-used as something else. For music bods, there are a million things you can use. Plectrums, added to any clothes look idiosyncratic and beautiful. Guitar volume knobs can add a cutely weird dimension to a garment if you can find a secure way of attaching them. Guitar straps make excellent belts - just loop it around your hips, feed one end through the strap-adjuster, and add a safety pin on the underside of the strap to pin the loose end in place. It's worth rambling through guitar stores to find unusual/secondhand guitar straps; in New York, there's a street just off Times Square that's awesome for this; in London, try Charing X Road. Classic Fender straps look especially effective; expect double-takes from guitarists as they stare at the little Gibson beauty adorning your waist!

Guitar leads are also great for this - just wind the lead around your waist/hips a few times, then secure the two ends on one side with some wire or a black hairband, leaving the two lead-heads dangling. Make sure you get as short a lead as possible though - you'll thank yourself for it when nature calls. Standing in a small toilet cubicle trying to unwind 12 metres of guitar cable from around your waist while trying not to sound like you're demolishing the cubicle is not fun. Ever. And you WILL get suspicious looks and sniggering when you eventually emerge. Trust.

Use existing, unwanted items to make new t-shirts/accessories. Try sewing slogans/images from old t-shirts onto the free bags you get with magazines. Voila, a cheap and unique bag that no-one else will be able to match. Or take an old, long silk/satin/nylon scarf, cut a strip from it and sew it down the sides of a skirt or top for an unusual trim. You could even take the buckles from old shoes, attach them to some girly ribbon and use it as a trim. Scarves/guitar straps also make good bag straps. Add coloured ribbon to bandeau-tops to make shoulder straps - you could use lots of multicoloured ribbons for an eyecatching effect. Seal quirky postcards/photos inside crumpled polythene bags, or laminate them, then sew onto bags for a graphic, Warhol-esque look.

Raid your desk. There are literally hundreds of items on the average office desk or dressing table that can be used to adorn clothes. As far as the punk look goes, safety pins have gotten very over-used; but try sewing a slogan onto a t-shirt with paper-clips and metallic thread. Thread beads onto stiff wire and form letters out of them, then sew these onto bags or tops, or down the side of skirts. Or sew cheap jewellery on for a Marni-esque look; last season they covered bags with a mishmash of jewellery. Try creating witty slogans that are comprised of a mix of stuff; angled letters like L and M could be formed from fuzzy pipe-cleaners and paperclips and safety pins, O's could be formed from cheap rings. If you're feeling brash, raid one of the machines you get outside newsagents, selling crappy jewellery in little plastic baubles - sew a bunch of rings on in a mishmash, all overlapping each other.

DIY it yourself. The potential for DIY jewellery is enormous. Everyone has a drawer in their house filled with unwanted odds and ends. Empty it onto a table, and systematically go through it, putting aside anything that can be pierced, threaded, wound, sewn or glued onto a necklace. Guitar plectrums make awesome pendants, or even bracelets, if you can be arsed to pierce enough of them and link them together. Keys make cute pendants. Old buckle belts can make excellent wrist or neck cuffs - simply cut off the belt at the right length, shape the edges with scissors or a file to stop them being too sharp, then buckle it on and wear it. You can make exquisite, delicate chokers by threading tiny glass beads onto several strands of beading wire, twisting/loosely plaiting the wire and then fixing onto a clasp [available from any haberdashery/bead store] using a pair of ordinary tweezers.

Shoes ...are one area where you should never, ever be cheapskate. C'mon, man. All the money you're saving on clothes now, you can surely afford a decent pair of shoes. Don't make the chiropodist do bad things to your feet after you wreck them by wearing someone's stinky old trainers that they threw out three years ago. That's just low.