recycled fashion

so my next project at uni (which i really should be working on over my break) is to create something fashionable from recycled materials.

but whenever i google, everything seems to be like charms found vintage or whatever and its not what i need.

it has to be wearable but it could be jewellery or something. its also specifically supposed to be everyday wearable which i feel means a paper dress would be silly.

its such a fucking open brief tho im like...WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?! I have no ideas because I literally don't know where to turn.

One idea I had would be to work with records or old bits of floppy discs or cds to make jewellery, but I don't know where to start.
Or we've done a lot of cut up work - like cut outs which I love doing but I wouldn't know where to start with that either.
I have that generation t book which i could easily do but i feel like it's not really good enough.

Does anyone have any ideas or know anything about this? Are there any designers who do it? Or people who work with interesting materials? I wanna do something exciting.

I feel bad for turning to here but it is SO open because it's just "you have to use recycled materials. that is all".
I could literally do anything so I don't know where to start.
I could go and buy something from a charity shop and revamp it but again, where do I start? What do I look for? And it kind of relies on me finding something usable.

Spoiler:

the brief:

Design something to wear or adorn the body which has been created from found, recycled or unexpected sources.

Your creation will be completely wearable, not silly.

You will use ‘finds’ . . . either charity shop goods or found/created

materials to design and produce a believable, sustainable, exquisite, wearable, delightful garment or adornment.

WHERE DO I START?!

i kind of feel like as well, if I could choose a material or something then I could work on a design based on it but I'm so stumped.

I drink a lot of diet coke so I have quite a few cans.

There's the obvious choice of paper.

I kind of like the idea of records or cds but i don't know about working with them

use the coke boxes, man!
like, when you but 24 cans of coke, there is the large box.
and just like, make a skirt or something out of it.


o/t i have one of those juice pouch bags hahaha.

well i was thinking if i could do something with the cans. maybe using the ringpulls, the sides and the circular bases or something. id have to sit and file them down but....i dunno.

maybe something with spirals made from the cans or...i dunno.

At first: you have to do sketches or you make it real? I'm stupid so i had to ask jajja

Last week here at home we made an "annual cleaning" of everything and we finally decided to get rid of most of our VHS. One of my friends was in need of VHS for some projects at uni, so he took them home.
So, this make me think.. you can do some kind of fabric or web (like the one on the bag you have posted) with the reel? film? -idk the name of it; where the movies are recorded- and make like a little black dress

ooh and you could make a pretty silver bracelet or something with the Coke cans for an accessory haha.

Duct tape dress? I've heard of a lot of people making those for prom. Or you could use things like caution tape? One of my friends for a party made a corset top out of a Victoria's Secret Bag. She cut the sides out and laced them up with ribbon, it actually looked really cool.

you could weave plastic bags together? as fabric.

umm an artist(forget name) knitted strips of coke cans together but they were vry very sharp.

Theres an episode of project runway were they had a recycling challenge, that would probably be really helpful to watch.

http://vids.tv/Project-Runway/tv/season-3


It's "waste not want not"
x

love you ruth.

i couldnt really do duct tape mandy because its not really recycling...

i like the idea of using plastic bags actually lil! im pretty sure i have a tute for knitting a bag from carrier bags so i think i might give it a go! if i fail to work up a skirt of dress or something then i can always just go with the bag!

my mum crocheted a bag made from old tesco bags whichs she ripped into strips once. that was awesome! i did alot about recycled fashion in school. how about just general DIY t-shirt reconstruction? thats recycling old clothing to make new clothing. you don't necessarily need to use rubbish!

also remember that cds, records etc can be melted and smashed up. uhhmm... jewellery made from melted/bent cutlery/toothbrushes is quite a cool one... old kids toys?

when i was in college me and another girl in my class found a pair of age 6-7 corduroy trousers and made a corset top which had like the button fly across the chest so it made like a sexy low neck. if you look at a garment and how it's made you can often see how some parts made to fit certain parts of the body fit otherss... like a pair of trousers' crotch could fit under the arm like a sleeve, you know?

uhm... can't remember much more from college. jeans make good handbags... uhhhmm... yeah. i'll keep thinking about it for you ha ha.

make a tutu-type dress/skirt out of newspaper. and then use can tabs to like, adorn the straps. or add embellishment.

see its like, i had ideas but its like...i didnt really want to just make a dress out of some old clothes because thats what everyone will do.

and i have pressure because im leaving to do fashion!

im gonna knit up some plastic and see how it looks.

what about some jewellery like the scrabble-piece necklaces? you could use things like those, poker chips etc etc and drill holes in them.

or if it was me, i'd screw the clothing idea and make a hat, like those tiny ones you perch on your head at a weird angle and stuff it full of odd boardgame bits on wire. instead of netting you could use "recycled" chicken cage wire and smooth the edges.

oorr maybe if i was being really extreme, go with the hat idea again and make it into a magpies nest - as they're the 'collecter-reusers' of the animals and fashion it out of twigs, foil, wire, coins and all sorts.

not sure if your tutor will like that, but its my take on the brief!

look into origami as well.
I saw an amzing AMAZING thing at our national school of drama in the costume section- the outfits were all made of paper, and some of the folding was exquisite (i nearly wet my pants.) and I'm talking huuuuge ball gowns etc -Paper can be surprisingly strong

hmm what else. the melting plastic is a goo idea... it'd be amazing if you could somehow melt records or somethign so they were malleable enough to mould to the body, without burning yourself if you know what i mean. and then make it into a corsetty type thing? i bet it could be done. kind of like those record bowls. you could then use the knitted plastic to make a skirt to go with it or something

this is fun i'll probably come back again if i think of anything

well i did some googling and discovered a tutorial for melting plastic bags.

basically you get layers of bag and put parchment, or in my case, tracing paper on either side. you then iron it so that the plastic melts and fuses together.

i started off with little sections and then tried, in stages, a whole bin bag. after doing this and checking it against my skirt, i found it was about twice as long as i would need. so i worked with half bag lengths.

it kind of feels leathery. im hopefully going to cut out sort of...trapeze shapes and sew them together to make a skirt. maybe. what would the best shape be?

i might need a skirt pattern.

can anyone advise me on making a skirt from different long vertical sections?!

http://www.replayground.com/pages/diy/umbskirt.asp

might just copy this