Well done our Junk Kouture group and their teacher Ms. Matthews on the wonderful creations they made together.
Read all about their concepts below:
Paper Princess:
We did Junk Kouture as part of TY. We really enjoyed making the outfit and researching how to do it. For our design we did a dress made out of paper from old books in the library. We decided to use these because otherwise they would have been thrown in the bin. We saw it as an opportunity to recycle and make something out of it and give it a second life. We named it the paper princess.
We really enjoyed making it.
Birthday Girl
Our dress bares designs that resembles sea creatures and sea life, which are made out of variations of plastics and waste. We chose ‘celebration’ as our theme for the source of materials we were going to use as it’s overlooked how much waste is generated from such events like parties and weddings. Balloons can take hundreds of years to decompose. Plastic bottles take 450 years to decompose. While mesh fabric takes two to twenty hundred years to decompose. Our aim was to also depict the plastic that ends up in the ocean and its impact on sea creatures by raising awareness of this. There is around 75 to 199 million tons of plastic in our oceans, 100 million marine animals die from plastic consumption each year.
Plastic in the ocean, or on the oceans surface affects the ocean’s ability to conduct photosynthesis and micro algae efficiently, which results in a loss of planktons ability to process carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide results in the rise of global temperatures. Therefore, tying in with climate change. We really enjoyed the process of making and designing the dress, and we picked up new skills and new interests from it.
Sallyanne, Eve and Rebecca
FAIRY Kouture :
For Junk Kouture I was inspired by high end designers such as shu shu tong and Simone Rocha.
My theme for my design is the power of imagination. I portrayed this through the image of a fairy.
This shows the childlike mindset of belief in the imaginary . It is also how as we evolve a people we can loose touch with our creativity and the importance of belief in the impossible . It was a really enjoyable experience.
Be Your Own Barbie:
The inspiration for our piece ‘Be Your Own Barbie’ was celebrating all the things that make women who they are. All the materials have a meaning connected to women’s lives and were reused from objects we found around our homes and our school. They showcase women in different careers for example music sheets for women in the music industry, dvds for film, wires for STEM and book pages for literature. We took inspiration from the recent Barbie movie that highlights inequality and stereotypes faced by women and recognises their achievements and differences. We wanted the piece to show that everyone is the perfect Barbie in their own way.
By Erika and Sarah
Themis – Goddess of Balance
Our Junk Kouture design incorporates themes of balance and climate change, with contrasting ice and fire imagery. A wide range of materials contributed to the design, including theatre curtains, coffee pods, plastic bags, wire, hard plastic and orange nets. The design of the skirt reminds us of dancing flames and the details on the top make us think of barnacles from the sea. The style takes inspiration from warriors to showcase the power of nature and remind us that we need to fight for it. The curtains are an essential element of the design and reinforce the theme of balance, after decades of hanging in our school theatre, they now have a new purpose.
By Caitlin, Caoimhe, Lily
Gaia’s ocean symphony
My name is Abena and this is my submission for junk kouture 2024, called Gaia’s ocean symphony. Greek goddess Gaia is known as the mother of nature, and she is what we based our design on. Our design aims to embody women’s empowerment and the power of nature. We wanted to convey the message that the old and broken can be renewed, mirroring nature’s resilience. Just like how a tree grows through a building over time, nature always redeems itself if we let it be. Illustrating this, we’ve used plastic to represent leaves and flowers, highlighting the evolving relationship between humans and nature. -By Abena
Standing with the suffragettes
We chose to make our junk kouture out of old materials and clothes from the school and our homes, Ms Gonoud offered us a lot of old materials she had in her classroom which we used to make the skirt, we turned plastic waste into flowers to go on the hat and we found the hat in a pile of clothes which was going to be recycled in one of our houses, the top was made out of an old ballet skirt from childhood years that no longer fit or was in use, finally we found the shoes in the same pile of clothes we found the hat in it was going to be put in the bin so we decided to use them. We based our design of the suffragettes by using their signature colours of purple and green.
Glamour Gazette
Over the last few weeks, we have been gathering materials and curating our design for Junk Kouture. Our inspiration has come from old fashion magazines such as vogue and we were inspired by the elegant designs we saw in these magazines. We carefully selected the materials we would be using in order to minimise our waste and ensure our design was functional. The white draping was made from old bed linen. We arrayed our corset with extracts from newspaper articles that contain topical issues and challenges that face our world today, some of these issues include, climate change, fast fashion, conflict around the world and homelessness. The white draping symbolises peace which contrasts with these issues. We feel our corset tells a story and reinforces the idea fashion is influenced by current affairs, as demonstrated on runways for centuries.
By Leila and Lauren
