Recycling is Fun!
- Jaime Eray
- Dec 15, 2015
- 2 min read
Photos: Alfred Lor Photography. You can check out his other work here.
I took Art as a subject in high school, and part of the course was a year-long project to design an outfit made of found and recycled materials. At the end of the year we had to organise a one-night fashion show for these outfits. We also went to a nearby school and took part in their fashion show, which had a much larger audience and raised awareness for pollution and the importance of recycling. It was a lot of fun, but let me say right now, DO NOT try to run bubble wrap through a sewing machine. The popping is fun, but the shreds of plastic and ruined tension settings are not.
I made a number of outfits, and modelled a classmate's dress as well. I enjoyed it, because it wasn't sewing so much as scrapbooking, on a body instead of a page. There were two general themes; culture and fairytale. I made male and female matching Japanese outfits, loosely based on samurai dress and typical anime imagery. I also did a typical preppy anime girl outfit, and a punky faerie ensemble.
This was my anime girl, modelled by the most beautiful and bouncy blonde I know. It got third place in my school show.
Materials:
bubblewrap and plastic for the skirt
fruit bags for the bust and arm poufs, with streamers and string as drawstrings
waistband of old nylon tights as the corset, with giftwrap ribbon
old fishnet stockings turned upside down for sleeves
laminated plastic paper and string for shoes (sewn and glued to old tommy takkies)
She was the most detailed and involved outfit - from the tongues of the shoes to the buttons on her skirt. And wow, did the model pull it off!
The Japanese couple outfits were a bit of a cheat - I used old cotton bedsheets as a base from which to work. The tops were modelled off of the kimono, but very loosely, as I didn't use the traditional rectangular pattern. I tried to give an ancient warrior feel to them, especially the male. With a modern twist of course, as evident in the bright plastic police tape.
Materials:
old cotton bedsheets
black fabric paint
police/construction warning tape for top
hessian for pants
dried and emptied teabags for sash down one leg
bamboo stick for 'katana', with a sash of plastic
Materials:
cotton
dried and emptied teabags and an old belt buckle
police/construction warning tape
Collecting the teabags was really fun - and a good excuse to drink more than 10 cups of tea a day. Different blends and flavours actually left slightly different shades of brown when dried.
The punky faerie was the first outfit I made. I spent more time designing the style of the dress, and less time playing around with materials.
Materials:
newspaper
black and white plastic
red insulation tape
ribbon and string
old stocking leg for glove
A super fun and challenging experience. The shows gave me some serious inspiration, not just for fashion design and sewing but also just to create, in general.
