A bodice of Uno cards, a Reese's candy wrapper skirt, catalog-page accessories and newspaper shoes?
Saturday night's first ever Trashion Show was a feast of the unusual, the eclectic and the unexpected.
Students from seven regional high schools designed and presented more than 50 ensembles in a high-fashion runway show held in Traverse City West Senior High School's commons area. A standing room only crowd of 300 people whooped and applauded the students' wearable art, all grounded in salvageable materials.
"I think so many people were just shocked at the level of ingenuity and just the innovation and the ideas and concepts presented by high school students,” said Julie Foster, an art teacher at West who launched the show.
Three judges — Doug Domine, Janet Reed and Emily Mitchell — selected winners from the show while the audience voted on their top outfit. The results of the Trashion Show are:
• Best in show: Ashleigh Powell, West High School, "Chain Mail”
• First Place: Maeve Burns, Juliana Lisuk, and Erin Sneed, Leland, "Queen of Hearts”
• Second Place: Flora Lee, Interlochen Arts Academy for "Tea Time”
• Viewer's Choice: Shayna Zerbe, St. Francis High School, "A Walking Invitation”
Half of the show's proceeds are earmarked for Pete's Place, a shelter for youth in crisis administered by Third Level while the rest will help start a Trashion fund.
"We hope to keep this event going because it is such a positive event for so many high schoolers in the area,” Foster added.
Foster spread the word about the show to fellow art teachers and high school students from Traverse City Central and West, St. Francis, Suttons Bay, Leland, Onaway and Interlochen joined in the fun. Put off one week because of a snow day on Friday, January 18, the students made the most of it Saturday.
The models, sometimes the designer and other times a friend, descended West's two sweeping staircases before strutting on the runway as the crowd gaped and pointed at the various materials of each outfit. Choreographer Jose Flores Sandula, a senior at West, coordinated the lighting, music and presentation.
"The girls were excited and making the dresses was really fun,” said Sandula, who also made five dresses for the show. "It's a really neat idea for the schools to do something like this.”
A gown of dyed coffee filters, a bubble wrap skirt, garbage bag formals — both black and white — a shirt of photos and a playing card train. The limit was each student's imagination.
Emily Seeley and a group of six friends nabbed scrap paper from their art room and cut and painted dozens of hands. Pinning them to a dress, Seeley modeled the brightly colored and definitely unique "Hands On” with aplomb.
"It's so exciting, fun to dress up and see all these really cool dresses,” said the Suttons Bay High School junior. "Everyone's so creative.”
While some creations were quickly recycled — dresses made of garbage bags or a complete newspaper suit, with tie — would not surviving the undressing phase, other outfits were durable.
"Game Night” by Taylor Mentzer featured a hand-sewn blazer made from a Twister game sheet, the aforementioned Uno card top and a four-colored skirt — primary colors of course, to coordinate with Twister — made of plastic table cloths.
"I stopped playing Twister and I saw the material just laying there and sewed it,” said Mentzer, a senior at Suttons Bay High School, who had classmate Charlotte Stowe model the ensemble.
The Viewer's Choice winner tapped left over 2007 St. Francis High School prom invitations for her ensemble, affixing the elegant invitations to each other to make a skirt. Her model, Rose Kranick, also sported a headdress of one more invitation while the rest of the outfit followed the color scheme.
"When I first started using these it was just going to be boots and then it turned into a dress,” said Zerbe.