Trashy fashion
Kids learn how to dress for success — with recycling
Staff writer
The latest fashion trend from Goessel features Amazon packaging, burned matches, and pages from a dystopian novel.
A trio of students in Kacie Schmidt’s advanced art class is hoping the dress they made for “Trash to Trends,” a competition sponsored by BC Emery Photography, wins big today in St. John. They started working on the dress — fashioned out of recycled materials — Sept. 2.
Alece Lehrman, Adriana Duerksen, and Cambry Duerksen designed their entry, taking cues from Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451,” which they read as freshmen.
“I had the idea of fire,” Cambry, a junior, said.
She was in charge of burning the matches — a task she could do from home when she had COVID-19.
Cambry estimated they used more than 1,500 matches to make a corset for the full-length dress, which Alece planned to wear on the runway.
On Monday, the young women worked on reinforcing the dress, including adding washers to the corset for better closure. Alece, also a junior, told Adriana, a sophomore who crocheted the dress’s straps, that the straps needed more red ribbon. They looked through their supplies for what might be available.
Schmidt said the students played to their strengths.
“I’ve been hands-off,” Schmidt said.
The dress involved a lot of creative problem-solving, she said. For example, the students dipped the matches in Mod Podge to seal them so they wouldn’t make black marks everywhere.
The competition required the students to work on their creation live for three hours.
The big topic of conversation Monday was how they were going to transport the dress.
“It’s going to be a whole production,” Schmidt said.