Op-shop stylist: I MAKE WOMEN FEEL A MILLION DOLLARS

RIDICULED FOR WEARING CAST-OFFS AS A KID, IT’S PAYING OFF NOW FOR THE SECOND-HAND ROSE

- Leena Tailor

Crafting Barbie outfits from chocolate wrappers or transforming stockings into dresses might sound like child’s play, but for Bree Thompson such creativity has weaved its way through her entire life. Yet it took an identity crisis, struggles fitting in at boarding school and many daunting mufti days before she fully realised how her love for repurposing items could help her grow confidence and embrace her body.

It then took a pandemic, life coach and journaling for the 28-year-old Kiwi to turn that passion into a dream career.

Bree’s now found her calling, helping women overcome style, wardrobe or body-image challenges through her knack for op-shop styling and reimagining clothing.

It’s a skillset she developed as a child, rummaging around her Warkworth home or art classes for fabrics to tie or staple into outfits she’d later model for her parents and three older brothers.

“I created dolls’ clothes from lolly wrappers and dressed up wooden pegs in outfits made from chocolate wrappers,” she recalls. “And I was always in my mum and nana’s closets, trying on clothes.”

By her teens, savvy Bree was an avid op shopper. She slit armholes into one oversized skirt to wear as a frock. But her confidence was rattled while adjusting to an all-female boarding school, where she self-consciously turned up to mufti days feeling out of place for not wearing designer labels.