Young fashionistas turn scraps to style
by Kristine Servando, abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak | 08/14/2009 7:43 PM
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MANILA - Heaps of scrapped cloth. Fourteen student designers. One challenge: to turn these discarded fabrics into classy fashion pieces.
Select students from the School of Fashion and the Arts (SoFA) took on this challenge at the third installment of the "Rags2Riches Eco-chic Exhibit" held last August 3 to 9 at the Eastwood Atrium Mall.
The garments exhibited ranged from two-piece bikinis to multi-colored mini-dresses and fancy embellished gowns. The fashion pieces had to be made of 80% recycled fabrics.
Out of 31 sketches, only 14 designs made it to the exhibit. These designs were hand-picked by SoFA co-founder Amina Aranaz-Alunan, a noted style icon and top ladies' bags designer.
"I thought it was a great idea to create something out of these used fabrics. We want to teach our students that you can be fashionable without being expensive. You can create nice dresses and accessories out of scraps. It's a nice opportunity to help and save, as well as let our students explore their creative minds," she said in a press statement.
Funky to classy
The exhibit featured designs that ranged from funky to classy. Janice Go's "corpse bride" piece had a corset top with a web of black jersey fabric and a sheer cream skirt. Gabbie Sarenas made a colorful wrap cocktail dress with rainbow cloth strips and a black tulle underskirt - a piece she called "Schizophrenia."
Kaye Morales, in her piece titled "Living in a state of extravagant fantasy", interpreted a one-shoulder mermaid dress in blue and green strips of cloth - reminiscent of a quilted rag.
In equally flamboyant fashion, Nicee Atienza came up with a dress named "Pasa Doble" that sported rope embellishments and a woven top with tangerine and zebra-print cloth.
Other designers made accessories out of the cloth scraps, including a huge rosette-designed clutch bag called "Yellow Bouquet" by Carissa Villanueva that featured a plastic container and rich folds of mustard-colored cloth.
Geofrey Zordilla made a trendy necklace out of black t-shirt cloth strips, while Mark Tamayo adorned his black crumpled-fabric bag with linked soda can lids for straps.
Fashion with a conscience
These fashion innovations captured the exhibit's theme to develop social and environmental consciousness among fashion industry professionals. Similar exhibits were held at the Shangri-La Mall in Mandaluyong and at the Podium in Ortigas.
The exhibit was launched in partnership with Rags2Riches Inc., a company that links up with women from poor communities and helps them create clothes and accessories using discarded fabrics from factories. Each of the company's products comes with a handwritten signature of the woman who made the product.
Currently, Rags2Riches is selling a collection of handbags and clutches, designed by Alunan, and made with recycled fabrics. It has also paired up with designer Rajo Laurel in promoting more eco-friendly shopping and styling practices.
For more information, visit SOFA Manila's website at www.sofamanila.com or the Rags2Riches website at www.rags2riches.ph.
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