Our Experience at the Project Greenway Fashion Show
Sophie Ostlund
|June 5, 2013
This is a guest blog post written by Whitney Young High School students Amy Yip & Lia Cernauskas in Chicago, IL.
Having to use recycled or vintage materials for our outfits really made us think about how much our old clothes or just any old fabric can be turned into something new. Instead of just throwing away clothes we don’t wear anymore and buying new ones, we can alter them or make them into something completely new. The fashion show really inspired us to be more environmentally conscious with our fashion choices. There were some challenges that came with using recycled materials to create our first dress. We had to figure out how to cut theUrban Outfitters bags to be flat pieces of fabric and fit together in the right way to make our circle skirt. Another challenge was finding enough of the bags to complete our skirt. In the end we had to borrow bags from our friends and neighbors, as we used about 10 bags all together. The material of the bags is also hard to work with since it is stiffer than the fabric usually used to make clothes and a lot more fragile as well. No major problems with our material choice arose while making our dress and we learned a lot about how fashion links with the environment.
Lia: The Project Greenway fashion show was one of the best experiences of my life. Even though I was stepping out of my comfort zone big time, I’m so glad that I did it. Now I feel like I am much more confident in doing things in front of crowds of people, and even just in every day life. I definitely plan to do Project Greenway again next year and I know Amy does too because as soon as the fashion show was over we were already talking about it. Besides modeling in the fashion show, making the dress was a great experience as well. I learned
how to do so many things from scratch and I got way better at using my sewing machine. I now know how to make a circle skirt just from sewing Urban Outfitters bags together and I definitely want to use that to make more circles skirts for myself. I want to be a fashion designer when I grow up, so this was the perfect first step to start getting ready now. Even though I was already pretty sure that I want to be a fashion designer, Project Greenway made me almost 100% sure as a freshman. This is definitely a life changing experience, and even if you don’t want to be a fashion designer or model when you grow up, I think everyone should try something like this at least once.
Amy: I have never really taken a particular notice to how much I actually loved the fashion world. As a young child, my mom always told me that I’ve always loved the cameras, but I never really connected that with fashion. When Lia and I were in first grade, our first grade teacher actually taught the whole class how to sew. That was a valuable skill that we used multiple times during the creation of our dress for Project Greenway. This was one of the best experiences of my life, and Lia and I already know for certain that we’re going to be doing this again next year.
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