Recycled fashion
Since 2015 I have been creating at least one garment every year out of trash. Each year I challenge myself to stick to one material and turn it into something unrecognizable. Here is a collection of my best works.
Above the Fold. This was my tenth year of creating recycled fashion and I wanted to pay homage to the beginners of this craft. Many use newspapers but I have never explored the medium until now. After creating Ten Thousand Transactions, I was inspired by a new technique I discovered, paper bead making. Combining these elements I decided to make 10,000 newspaper beads! I was also inspired by the ancient Egyptian bead net dresses, so I set out to create my own version. The base is made using thrifted chiffon fabric and each bead is strung together with fishing line. The shawl has around 500 embroidered newspaper beads as well.
Nutri-source dog food bag dress for a quinceanera themed fashion show. This dress took approximately 60 hours to complete and was fabricated without any glue! I took to the industrial sewing machines at my disposal to make this dress, and even made my own pattern for the bodice. This dress utilized 11 dog food bags almost entirely, with the scraps being turned into the flowers. My goal was to use a quilting style and cut the bags in such a way that there was little to no text on the dress. I had to reverse the bags to get plain white for the majority of it.
Callisto, a transforming dress made with dance costume straps and thread spools. My friend modeled this dress at a show in Austin TX, pulling off the transformation flawlessly! I spent around one year working on this dress, over half of it was hand sewn and every piece was placed strategically. The dress is meant to be worn in two ways; up with the white thread cones for a fun flapper-esque design, or down as a more elegant and colorful option. I utilized hundreds of thread cones to create the “sequins” underneath: hand cutting, drilling, and adding two jump rings to each piece.
My most profound project so far, Ten Thousand Transactions. This dress was a labor of love created over the span of two years. Made entirely out of receipts and featuring 10,000 origami cranes, each hand sewn to a paper skirt. The bodice has details created using three different paper manipulation techniques: bead making, paper mache, and actual paper making using a blender and water. If you want to read more about this dress and see behind the scenes photos, click here
Splintered Aspens, or Splintered Aspens King and Queen. I started out with a warped and torn oil painting my mom made in 2007. She wanted it to still be appreciated so she gave me the honor of repurposing it into a wearable work of art. The dress came together fairly fast with some leather and jewelry scraps, but the King's outfit took more time. For his cape I painted a similar scene using my mom's painting techniques out of old paint. In the corner of the cape I attached a section of the original painting to branch off of. His outfit was made of painting drop cloths and even some of my mom's paper towels and gloves from oil painting.
