Earth Day Fashion Show Sheds Light on Recycled/Upcycled Fashion – Deseret News

Salt Lake Community College Fashion Institute student Victor Matvienko strutted his stuff on the green carpet Monday and observed Earth Day by participating in the college’s first-ever “Trashion Show.”

Matvienko, who was completing his first year as a student at the fashion institute, wore an intricate short-sleeved patchwork shirt that he sewed from scraps of fabric that would otherwise have ended up in the landfill.

Instead, he spent “more than 50 hours” at a sewing machine turning scraps into a fashionable shirt with a high-low hem.

“You have crossing seams, so you have to be precise,” he said.

He was among a dozen emerging designers whose creations were modeled after the makeshift runway in a hallway of the community college’s South City Campus.

Some were modeled by their creators, others were modeled by friends, family and fellow students.

Some outfits were recycled from thrift stores, but one student’s dresses were made from vintage tablecloths, breathing new life into the lace-adorned and embroidered textiles.

Shandi Pearce, also a first-year fashion institute student, reused her grandfather’s jeans, which he wanted to donate to charity.

“I said, ‘Absolutely not. I can’t let you do that,'” Pearce said.

Heat was used to etch significant skulls onto each of the legs of the jeans. “I thought the design was so cool. I said, ‘There’s no way you can donate these. I have to take them,” she said.

She kept them for a while and had the chance to reuse them in crew-leg jeans, using another pair of jeans she had used for extra fabric.

She finished the look with a men’s shirt she bought at a thrift store, shortened it to fit her body and finished it with a raw hem.

Pearce said she regularly shops at thrift stores because “I feel a little guilty buying something brand new at full price.” Mostly it’s just because I know I can take inspiration from a thrift store and turn it into something I actually want to wear. Instead of searching the internet for something that suits me, I can just make it myself.”

Sustainability is important to Pearce, she said.

“It is important to take care of the planet we live on. We can’t actually just go up and go to another planet, you know. So I think it’s important to take care of our landfills and our oceans. And I think it’s kind of pointless to make new products when there’s already clothes that have been around for 10 years that we can recycle into something else,” she said.

Fashion Institute instructor Amy Royer, who has taught at SLCC for 11 years, said part of the journey has “made sustainability part of the fashion institute. I love it. I love it with every fiber of my being. I love taking things out of the trash and making something new out of them,” she says.

The students were given $5 to purchase items from the Goodwill outlet bins, which they redesigned and updated.

Recycling or upcycling clothing saves significant resources and fewer garments end up in landfills, Royer said.

“It takes 700 liters of water to produce one cotton T-shirt; 1200 liters to produce a pair of jeans,” she said.

“We also cut down a billion trees every year to produce rayon, which is not a super sustainable substance and therefore does not last forever. The number one fabric we see most in fashion these days is our synthetic fibers, specifically polyester. Fibers are not biodegradable and will therefore remain in landfills forever,” said Royer.

She gave the following advice: “Consume less. Be stewards of your clothes. If you must buy, buy second hand.”

The day’s events also included a clothing swap, a workshop on natural dyes and fabric printing and a fix-it clinic with instructions on clothing altering, repairing clothing and replacing or repairing zippers.

“Bring those clothes to life, keep them out of the landfill and on the streets,” says Peter Moosman, coordinator of SLCC’s Gender & Sexuality Student Resource Center, co-sponsor of the Earth Day events.

According to the United Nations Environment Program, consumers around the world are buying more clothes and wearing them for less time than ever before, meaning garments are thrown away as quickly as trends change.

The Ellen Macarthur Foundation, a partner of UNEP, is leading an initiative towards a world without waste. The foundation estimates that a truckload of abandoned textiles are dumped or burned in landfills every second. Meanwhile, people buy 60% more clothes and wear them for half as long.