Of course! You can buy a ton of fabric for cheap, and fabric stores offer plenty of discounts and sales. So for six hundred yen I could buy a cute blouse on clearance or at the thrift store, or I could buy enough fabric and thread and buttons and all that to make two dresses. A lot of the times I end up tailoring or reconstructing things I buy at the thrift store anyway, since it's not always in good condition or very pretty the way it is.