This opshop-found skirt is made from linen-silk blend fabric but had three issues working against it from my perspective. It was too long, too wide and had an old-fashioned, uncomfortable interfaced waistband.

I solved the length and waistband issues by simply cutting off the fixed band (including across the top of the zip). With the band removed, I reduced the girth of the skirt by taking a slice out of it along an existing seam (start from the bottom so the pleats sit neatly). Returning to the waist, I turned the cut edge over twice to make a casing for elastic. The zip now works, in conjunction with the elastic. This compromise method may horrify traditional dressmakers and neat people, but it is a practical workable solution that enables something unwearable to now be worn in a comfortable and viable form. 

I teamed the updated skirt with an opshop-found Mela Purdie top which is beautiful as is, after body heat dissolves its crinkles. The circular mat in the photo above is hemp rope washed up as flotsam/jetsam on the beach at Bolt Head near Moreton Telegraph Station on Cape York Peninsula many moons ago.