Above left, clockwise: 1st place Upcycled Ready-to-Wear, Designer and model Lynn Christiansen "Shielded": It is interesting to discover the history of aspects of clothing. Ties originated from cloth worn around the neck to protect from a sword blade. Denim, once strictly the domain of the working class, is now worn by almost everyone, even royalty. Drawing influence from ceremonial armor, I have used denim and ties in the place of metal, chain, and fur to create a garment for a modern-day warrior.
1st place Mystery Box, Designer Moniece Charlton, Models Bianca Rose Suit and Thomas Schauwers "Garden Party" - Moniece created a Maxi dress with a colorful patchwork skirt, embellished with hand embroidered flowers and leaves. The top is made from a black t-shirt, with a hand-sewn beige sweater bodice, neck trim from red sweater pieces and a sweet button "necklace". The sleeves are made from a lace trimmed white cotton table napkin & tiny flowers from the same red knit and my buttons. The skirt is made from carefully designed panels, using red and beige sweater pieces, green fabric ( which I turned inside out because of the gold Christmas pattern ) and dark grey table napkins. All flowers are made from the sweater bits with black thread stitching . The deep ruffle trim is sourced from the grey napkins and the back of the skirt from the green fabric. The back of the top features a single red flower and stem with leaves- sewn onto another lace napkin, with pieces borrowed from the coordinating jacket and vintage buttons. This is designed as a maternity dress and can be worn after the baby comes as well ( or can be altered ).
"No Sweat" - This stylish jacket began its life as a plain grey sweatshirt. It has been Upcycled with an upholstery fabric trim , green fabric, and red, dark brown and beige sweater pieces. Black trim was sourced from the hem of the t-shirt used in the top of the dress. Pockets are made from wool plaid fabric scraps. Buttons are from my own collection. The back panel is made from a cotton pillow cover & trimmed with the plaid fabric and red knit pieces. Another black t-shirt and jeans are the model's own, which have been upcycled and deconstructed. This jacket is designed as a unisex piece, which can be worn separately, or over the maxi dress.
1st place Student: Designer Leilani Borneman, Model Elsa Costa "Isla de Plástico" - Thisgown is created from a rescued dress from Goodwill and commercial fishingnets (gillnets, seine, and trawling). I love the artistic and cultural expression of fashion, but that love has soured for me, when I learned from my mom and the documentary, “True Fashion, some years ago about fashion’s impact on our planet. Last year, my mom and I both participated in the up-cycled fashion show, choosing the Mystery Box. But this year I wanted to create something that combined my concern about our oceans as well as the negative effects of fashion on our planet. In 5th grade, I presented a science fair project about the effect of plastics on our oceans. This year, in eighth grade, we were challenged to invent something to help reverse the damage we’ve already done to our water. I designed a concept for a large-scale installation of hydroponics as a way to clean our waterways. I also learned this year that commercial fishing nets are made of nylon which is a kind of plastic. Fishermen end up with back piles of worn-out netting usually ending up in landfills. I searched all over the Seattle area, looking for where we could source reclaimed, damaged, fishing nets. I asked my mom to ask the Bainbridge Island Facebook page. Someone directed us to a link to Net Your Problem in Seattle, a grassroots, for-profit collection and recycling organization specifically for fishing nets no longer usable. The founder, Nicole Baker, has her master’s in marine biology and her first job was as a fishery observer. She saw that fishermen and companies didn’t know what else to do with the nets. Now she has built trusting relationships with independent and commercial fishermen. Nicole, her partner Sara Aubery who works on the East Coast, and volunteers collect, break down nets and test other plastic equipment to match up which plastics recyclers to send it all to, to keep it out of the landfills. I experimented with draping the gillnetting which almost has the look of chiffon (from a distance haha!). I felt it was not substantial enough so I used seine and trawling netting and used the gillnet to accent the dress instead. I wanted to show the whimsy of fashion and show a garment that represents how we can all work together for solutions to rid the plague of plastic waste from our planet. I hope I achieved my goal. 1st place Connections: Designer Brooke Fotheringham, Model Alexandra Ozanich"Chitin Couture" - This biomorphic, sleeveless, shawl collar wrap dress is a celebration of the cellular level forms created by nature’s second most abundant polymer. Chitin is a component of fungal cell walls and the bodies of arthropods, and our corner of the world is lucky enough to be host to an amazing variety of both. The skirt portion of the dress is fashioned after iridescent dragonfly wing cells, the bodice focuses on the looping chitin fibers in mushroom fruiting bodies, and the collars are a combination of both insect and fungal variations of chitin fibers. The dress is made from used and upcycled materials including plastic bottles cut up into rings, used dryer sheets, a shower curtain, a bedsheet, window curtains, foil snack and drink bags, serger thread and fabric from my local Buy Nothing group, with additional textiles from the Goodwill Outlet bins.
