It’s that time of year in the Rubbish Renewed calendar to get inspired to design and construct! Rubbish Renewed is calling all creatives to find the inherent beauty in the trash around you. Delve into its unique characteristics: Is it stiff? Does it flow? Does it create volume on its own? How can it be attached? Discover the essence of the material and see the form emerge.
Things that are stiff and can create and maintain shape:
Things that are soft and can be sewn or woven:
Things that are small and can be cut up and tied, tacked, or glued:
Things that are small that can be rolled into beads or used whole and tied together:
THE REINCARNATION OF EARLY 20TH CENTURY WOOL COATS
My great uncle made braided rugs during the Great Depression and World War 2. Living in Roundup Montana, the winters were long and cold. He gathered worn out woolen coats and scraps from family and neighbors, and spent hours deconstructing garments, stripping fabric, and manipulating the newly formed strips into braids. This rubbish renewed process was normal during those lean times, making use of material that was finished from its original purpose, into something new and enduring. I grew up with Uncle Albert’s brightly colored, patterned rugs. One he made in later years still covers the floor of my childhood home, strong and seemingly unworn.
The rug that was in my aunt’s basement apartment, for as long as I remember, was an early version. When Betty passed, we discarded and distributed dozens of items. A few we kept. The rug, riddled with holes, was something to save for a later date. That time has arrived.
I transported the giant rug, weighing somewhere around 70lbs, back to Bend. Dragging it into my living room, like a body bag (luckily my partner was out of town), it was too big to unfold in my tiny Old Bend home. I left it in quarters and unlaced the braids, years of embedded debris falling free into the air and carpet (I donned a mask). Then the real work began.
I think unbraiding takes as long as braiding. The strands tangle and it’s necessary to cut out overly worn parts before separating the kinky quadra-folded strands into colors. The fabric unfolds in the process of washing each color group on the hand wash cycle in my front loader.
Now a ball of snarled fabric I untangle again, iron the lengths, and hang them to dry. The outside of the fabric is exceedingly worn even in areas without holes every inch. For now, I’ve rolled them up into spools by color and weight.
My next process is to cut the strands apart at the seams and remove those areas too perforated with holes. I’ll resew the bias cuts together with the insides now the face. My goal is to create a new coat, some parts re-braided and others sewn. I’ll keep you posted as my process continues on the reincarnation of an early 20th century wool coat.
Get inspired by the waste around you, and send us your material manipulation inspiration! What will you create for the May 20th, 2023 Rubbish Renewed Eco Fashion Show!
As individual community members we have a responsibility to think about our choices and take actions to minimize our impact on the earth, but it is exponentially important for businesses to do the same. Poor waste management contributes to climate change, air pollution, and directly affects ecosystems and species. Reducing the carbon footprint of their products, creating initiatives to help employees reduce their impact, producing a climate conscious workplace, are all ways that businesses can step up their sustainability.
That’s why we love the Rubbish Renewed Business Challenge! We get to highlight the sustainable work of local businesses who take their impact seriously.
Each year a group of businesses come together to celebrate sustainability, support Realms education, and compete for the Coveted Trash Trophy.
Celebrate the 2020 Business Challenge Runway participants through the captivating photos of Jazmine Turner Photography’s Mindy J. Turner and SHE Photography’s Suzette Hibble!
New Season . . . Spring . . . Saturday, May 20th 2023!
The revival of Rubbish Renewed creates opportunities. One of these inspired a new season, Spring. Spring offers fresh venue ideas, novel designs, and more time for motivated student and adult designers to conceptualize and construct.
The design, creation, and application are a months-long process for designers to engage in and learn about waste, personal actions, design, creation skills, and determination, culminating in the professional feel of the show!
Just 4 months away. What will you create?
Save the Date: Saturday, May 20th 2023!Submission deadline one month before
Rubbish Renewed has developed into a showcase for talented community artists. Many designers submit year after year inspired to up their game in sustainability, material manipulation, and style each event. Pieces tell a variety of stories like the challenges of medical waste, excessive packaging from our mail order and coffee on-the-go obsessions, and how to transform discards into truly wearable art.
We all know the impact of too much trash – Air pollution, climate change, soil and water contamination… but it’s easy to ignore when it’s whisked away from our homes each week and hidden from view of our daily lives.
Our student designers elevate these issues to the forefront of their creativity and learning, then take the mantle, using Rubbish Renewed Eco Fashion Show as a platform, to inspire and educate the themselves and the rest of us. It’s time for us to listen!
Photo: SHE Photography
Savor the inventiveness of these young artists’ fashion from our 2020 show through stunning images by SHE Photography’s Suzette Hibble and Jazmine Turner Photography’s Mindy J. Turner.
We’re back!Rubbish Renewed Eco Fashion Show, one of the most forward thinking, eco-friendly, fundraising events to witness, is on track for a Spring Event. It did take another year, but this Rubbish Renewed Revival gives us the opportunity to refresh and re-imagine for the best show ever!
Photo: SHE Photography
With a Spring event on the horizon, I’ve started to gather materials and put my ideas down on paper. What about you?
There is a lot of work ahead to ready this event, but we are on our way!
Next week look for the 2020 Show Galleries with mesmerizing photos by Jazmine Turner Photography and SHE Photography.
After the nearly 2-year plunge into the pandemic, we are finally coming up for air and reviving Rubbish Renewed!
Student designers/models – unaware of life changes ahead. Photo: Jazmine Turner Photography
The pandemic seemed to come out of nowhere. Suddenly life drastically changed. As teachers, we had to rethink, redesign, readjust, and renew our commitment to students in a completely new environment. The first balls dropped were the things not immediately in front of us. Rubbish Renewed fell into the pandemic abyss.
Now, somewhat adjusted to our new normal, it’s time to reacquaint ourselves with the Rubbish Renewed mission and inflate the balls that we dropped after the 10th annual Rubbish Renewed Eco Fashion Show!
Scraps from old dress, upholstery project, old pillow sham, aunt’s closet . . .
During the pandemic many of us included in our lives the essence of the Rubbish Renewed tagline – transforming trash, inspiring community for a sustainable earth! Discarded scraps of fabric became one of the most common community connectors. Ordinary people created masks for family, friends and colleagues, out of those little pieces of fabric they just couldn’t throw away. My sister, a Rubbish Renewed designer from the past 2 shows, lives in Belgium. She made more than 200 masks to give to family, friends, and neighbors. And that’s a tiny amount compared to some.
Anticipate mesmerizing photos by Jazmine Turner Photography and SHE Photography from the 2020 show that share the 10th annual and look ahead to Rubbish Renewed Revival!
Once Rubbish Renewed sneaked onto the Bend scene in 2010, our first 3 years premiered at the Century Center. They provided the perfect venue – huge open space, a modular stage and few rules. We had our own bar provided by Plum & Boneyard, a cozy marketplace as you walked in, and moody lighting.
Year 1: there was 1 runway show with a total of 23 garments (compared to 57 split into 2 shows for 2020), and one designer made 5 of them! Diverse materials, from the launch of fused plastic as fashion, to beanie babies turned into a faux fur coat, graced the runway.
Designer: Renee Owens
Designer: Mai Nguyen
Designer: Nichole Cuddihy
Year 2: our first Business Challenge garments battled it out on the runway from ReStore, Wabi Sabi, Cuppa Yo, The Horned Hand, Utilitu Sew and the Environmental Center. Cuppa Yo won the 1st coveted trash trophy designed by, now 4 time winning designer, Panambi Elliott! Skillfully manipulated materials from bicycle tubes and slides, to a kiddy pool and Capri Sun containers raised the runwaybar. And we added a 2nd show!
Designer: Allison Murphy
Designer: Panambi Elliott
Designer: Paula Bullwinkel
Year 3: On the runway were 19 student designers up from 9 the year before! 2 of the Business Challenge entries were made by 2 of our talented students. And bags dominated the material cache: plastic and canvas grocery bags, dog food, ramen, paella, and coffee bags.
Designers: Sara Weiner & Karlin Hedin
Designer: Barb Campbell – Wabi Sabi
Designer: Paris Draheim – Barrio
Check out last year’s posts on the Birth of Rubbish Renewed: Part 1 & Part 2, to get the background on our start.
Look for Years 4-5: The History of Rubbish Renewed coming soon.
It’s hard to believe that Rubbish Renewed is celebrating 10 years. Enjoy the video that highlights 6+ garments from each year. It’s amazing to see the evolution, the different venues, and where we have evolved to today.
Rubbish Renewed plans to celebrate this milestone with some unique retrospective fun planned for the evening. Look for upcoming info on our after party. If you are 21 and over, and were at either show, we have the Midtown until midnight!
Buy your tickets today! 10th annual Rubbish Renewed Eco Fashion Show at The Midtown Ballroom on Saturday, January 25th, 2020.
Rubbish Renewed Eco Fashion Show 