DEBRIS COUTURE / a sustainable trashion project

Join us for an exciting and environmentally conscious community art project as we work together to turn trash into a “haute couture” collection.

Beginning in late October 2023, Debris Couture is designed to prepare cohorts of families, communities, school groups, businesses and organizations in creating their own bespoke outfits for a spring collection scheduled to hit the runway in May 2024 at Free Center.

The project is designed to promote community-wide growth in three key areas.

Conservation: learn to minimize our use of finite natural resources and our negative impacts on ecosystems and communities.

Education: work to foster a stronger awareness and understanding of environmental and sustainability issues here in our community.

Creativity: through the fun of creating together in groups, realize the “feel good” benefits and opportunities of a sustainable mindset.

Project Overview

Many sectors—including the fashion industry—are grappling with the impact their manufacturing and consumption strategies have on our environment. It’s now widely accepted that poorer communities are at even more risk when it comes to environmental change. We believe it will take all of us working together to stabilize and reverse the adverse effect of these impacts on the environment. Through our Debris Couture project, Free Center hopes to inspire positive, healing actions for our planet through collaborations with local environmentalists, designers, artists, institutions, businesses, school groups, and families.  Let’s raise awareness and further activate a mindful community response to our natural environment.

Participants will work together in groups to:

  • Understand plastic pollution ,recycling/reusing, conservation, and environmental issues within our community to uncover why these are important issues both locally and globally

  • Explore various forms of debris/trash

  • Design and create an outfit using unconventional materials that might otherwise be thrown away, recycled, or considered trash

  • Sew, attach, and adhere materials in a creative and innovative way, open your mind to the trash around us… learn to upcycle trash in a fun way and show off your creativity to the community on the runway

The project will unfold as follows:

October-December
Free Center will host a series of  Debris Couture Open Studio Workshops  focused on waste, sustainable fashion practices, upcycling, and recycling, providing participants with the knowledge and skills to create environmentally friendly clothing and accessories. Collections sites will be established and materials will be sorted and stored.

January-April
Free Center Sustainable Trashion Open Studio Workshops
Hosted at Free Center, participants will put their newfound skills into practice, creating fashion pieces from discarded materials that have been collected in our community.
The culmination of our efforts will be to design an exhibition and fashion show, where the creations from the Free Center Open Studio Workshops will be displayed and celebrated, serving as a platform to showcase the innovative designs and the importance of sustainable practices.

May
We will wrap up the project with our Debris Couture: A Sustainable Trashion Project Spring Collection Runway Show, a collection of sustainable and environmentally friendly fashion pieces created during the trashion workshops that can tour other municipalities/schools in our region.

We look forward to working with you to promote a more sustainable and environmentally conscious community.

DEBRIS COUTURE Participant Signup