Have you ever tried to make a dress?
Have you ever tried to do the same thing only using recyclable materials? If yes HI FIVE!!!
It’s fun, challenging and really fulfilling in the end.
I have been doing freelance modelling for a few years and last year around this time I was approached by a local pageant competition organiser.
I have never done pageantry so I said yes to it. We live only once after all. Plus wanted to find out if the preconceived ideas about pageant competitions were real. But that is a story for another time.
As part of the competition we all had to create an EcoDress in support of recycling. I absolutely loved this because I think we could do so much better in every country when it comes to recycling.
Soo… The dress had to be wearable. In fact, I had to wear the dress on the evening of the final. And I did.
I’m a creative individual as well as competitive one so this task made me really excited.
First stop Pinterest -as always- to look for inspirations and amazing creations.
I was ecstatic by the end of all that research. Just couldn’t wait to get started.
Last thing I had to do was to decide what to use to make the dress. I chose to use paper for my dress. Not too original I know.
You might even say, it was an obvious and easy choice… I thought so too until I started to put the dress together....
I spent 2 months modelling and remodelling the paper dress using only cardboard, magazines, lot of glue and some black duct tape....
During this time I loved the dress, couldn’t wait to finish it and show it off but I was ready to lit it up more than enough times too. #creativemadness
Let me shows you in images how it all went down. And be my judge on how I have done!
First I just wanted to start with a sturdy base using cardboard and hoped to achieve a corset. It's actually really hard to mould and soften cardboard. I had to try and squash it before doing anything.
On this one you can actually see I have decided to create a long dress and the corset is actually looking a lot better. To create length news paper is the best. I could layer it and progress relatively fast.
My first attempt at finding material to fasten the corset was a stronger bin liner.....Let's just say it's not the best thing to use as it is not strong enough. Gaffa/duct tape worked the best for me in the end.
When I began my dress I imagined it to be very colourful and eye catching. I have used magazine pages to decorate and create flowers to stick on. I pretty much used up my entire Vogue magazine collection going back years.
Also, it is not that easy to spot but I have made the front of the dress shorter by this point. There were a couple of issues with having a long dress. Mainly the fact that I wouldn't have been able to step in it. I was trying to avoid looking like a Tin Man on the stage.
And what is a dress without some kind of accessories?! I thought throwing around a couple of fashion brand names on a paper chocker looked relevant at the time.
The finished dress!
And there is me wearing the dress on the night of the final.
Let me know what you think!
And I hope this article encourages you to recycle more because a lot of the things we use can be re-used and we only got this planet to live on.
Keep being awesome Steemians!
Upvoted. I never thought recycling can be applied in clothes and be that beautiful
Thank you. Glad you found this interesting.
Yeah. Its an interesting idea. Somebody can make much money out of it
Such a great looking dress!
Great idea!