Beneath flashing lights to the sound of catwalk beats, a model glides down the custom-built runway with confidence and poise in a glamorous garbage gown. The vinyl album corset, construction fencing hoop skirt and abandoned storm gear were collected from a single dumpster dive in Ballard, Wash. The clever design received thunderous applause for its 'Marie Antoinette' resemblance at the RE Store's Eighth Annual Recycled Art & Fashion Show.
To inspire change, trash fashion models wearing unique creations made of unconventional materials paraded down the runway at Bellingham's Wild Buffalo House of Music. The Haute Trash Fashion Show is only one component of the annual April art exhibit sponsored by the RE Store, a local non-profit retail entity promoting reuse, that challenges perceptions of everyday waste.
Haute Trash is a troupe of artists who design haute couture fashion from garbage. They educate, entertain and empower communities to reduce, reuse and recycle. This Seattle-based nonprofit has produced more than 100 runway fashion shows since 2002. It continually challenges consumers to consider the impact of trash on our environment with new designs from old junk.
Haute Trash designer, model and emcee Rayona Visqueen said she always includes facts about human impact on the planet to emphasize the education component central to the Haute Trash mission. Americans generate about four and half pounds of garbage per person per day on average, Visqueen said. This translates to approximately 130,700 pounds of trash in one adult individual's life-that's enough to fill 10 garbage trucks. Almost 75 percent of that trash could have been reused or recycled.
Trash fashion is just one example of the creative ways in which the RE Store has inspired reuse. Established in 1993 to divert usable building materials from the Whatcom County garbage incinerator, the RE Store salvages nearly 4 million pounds of unnecessary waste per year. For Bellingham residents, it is an outlet for recycling and education.
Carl Weimer, a RE Store founder and current Whatcom County Council member, said he worked with local remodeling contractors who accumulated functional building materials from remodeling jobs. They spent six months studying and surveying the possibility of a new retail adventure that would divert as much waste as possible in a self-sustaining way, Weimer said.
The RE Store founders were environmentally driven and had little business experience, so this endeavor was a leap of faith, Weimer said. Researching retail recycling stores around the country provided a model for the RE Store in Bellingham, he said. Today the RE Store is located in the Fountain District on Meridian Street and occupies a 20,000 square foot space, a considerable increase from the original 6,000 square foot store on Guide Meridian.
"We didn't want to be out there in mall heaven," Weimer said. "But it was probably a fortuitous thing that we did."
Windows, flooring, paint and lighting are items the RE Store accepts from homeowners, contractors and businesses. RE Store donations are eligible for either in-store trade credit, which awards the donor 25 percent of the RE Store selling price, or a tax receipt. Since the RE Store opened, it has increased retail capacity and expanded services.
Jason Darling, the RE Store education and marketing coordinator, said workshops and ongoing informational exhibits are hosted to help people save money and teach the skills necessary to reduce individual carbon footprints.
RE Store workshops provide hands on experience that teach practical, do-it-yourself skills and promote reuse, Darling said. The workshops cover areas like plumbing, electrical and tiling. A series of three recycled art workshops in April 2009 were part of the Re Store's annual month-long dedication to recycled art.
"It's not direct education," Darling said. "It's more inspiration."
Thor Myhre, a local artist, said he has been sculpting recycled art for 15 years. Myhre hosts "Junk has Soul" workshops in elementary schools and said his mission is to encourage creativity.
Myhre began sculpting with recycled material because it was what he could afford, but later discovered those materials had more character and soul, he said.
"The junk is inspirational," said Myhre, who joined the annual RE Store art exhibit three years ago.
Darling said the first recycled art show was in 1999. It was a small gallery in a RE Store conference room and featured the store's customers. The first fashion show was in 2001 at the Seattle RE Store, and the month-long exhibit has grown every year since, he said.
Five galleries, three workshops and two fashion shows contributed to the 2009 Eighth Annual Recycled Art and Fashion Show to demonstrate recycled art potential and educate communities about reuse. Galleries in Bellingham, La Conner and Seattle featured recycled artwork from professionals, higher education students and K-12 students, Darling said. This year was the largest production to date and the first time that trash fashion shows were held in both Seattle and Bellingham.
Encouraging people to live more lightly and creatively is part of the annual art exhibit mission, Darling said. It is no surprise that trash fashion, with its distinctive originality, has become a hot commodity in the annual RE Store art exhibit.
Trash fashion predates the RE Store. Susan Lamela produced the first trash fashion show in 1983 in Nevada City, Calif. as a social science experiment. A show called "On the Cutting Edge" featured approximately 20 simple designs made mostly of garbage bags.
Enter Robin Worley: artist, entertainer and educator. Worley experienced trash fashion for the first time in 1986 as a model for Lamela's second trash fashion show. Worley adopted Rayona Visqueen as her designer alias and her creative fashion pieces were featured for the first time in the next Lamela show called Hot Trash 8-8-88.
As a young girl, Worley said she was interested in both trash and fashion. Her experience mostly revolved around making clothes for her Barbie dolls.
"I've always built whatever from whatever," said Worley, who moved to Hawaii in 1991 and spent the next 10 years leading trash fashion shows like Lamela's throughout the islands.
Worley brought trash fashion back to the mainland in 2000. What begun as a fun, creative art outlet evolved into an important venue for communities around the world. Trash designers recognized their thought-provoking designs could inspire more sustainable lifestyles through reuse.
"We used to do things for fun [in the beginning]," Worley said. "Then we realized we were making a statement."
Through art, entertainment and education, Worley works to liberate the minds of youth. With humor and irony, the Haute Trash fashion shows contain a certain shock factor that sends people away with new inspiration for everyday waste. Worley said her productions promote a shift in consciousness that creates a totally new perspective on garbage.
San Francisco trash designer Nic Griffin connected with Worley and the Haute Trash troupe at the Oregon Country fair. Known as Lotta Rubbish by her trash fashion pals, Griffin said she was drawn to trash and design as a young girl. Griffin was attracted to brightly colored foils and made dolls out of candy wrappers.
"That's the first time I found beauty in trash," Griffin said.
By designing and participating in the trash fashion movement, Griffin said she hopes to divert as much beautiful trash from landfills as possible and create beautiful designs. Ideally she'd like us to achieve zero waste.
"I'm a purist about trash fashion. If it can be recycled, it should be recycled," Griffin said. "I prefer to use stuff that can't be used at all."
Trash fashion is happening everywhere, and it just keeps spreading. Worley, who is involved with five shows in the Seattle area yearly, said her Seattle productions inspired the annual "Junk to Funk" show in Portland, Ore.
Trash fashion is also global. The Bellingham show featured a design from London. An annual love parade in Berlin features chicken-wire-winged angel costumes that people wear throughout the parade and invite spectators to stick trash on, Worley said. By the end of the route a unique garbage art piece has been created, she said.
Griffin said trash art in Italy began with a movement called "Arte Povera." Worley said further south in Waitakere, New Zealand an annual "Trash to Fashion Award" show has existed for more than a decade. Back in Bellingham, trash fashion remains an integral part of the RE Store re-art exhibit.
Following the models' final catwalk strut, congratulations and cheers fill the Wild Buffalo. Camera phones snap pictures while the audience raves about the production. As the night comes to an end, the inventive outfits are packed away, waiting to inspire new garbage perspectives on the next available crowd.
From California, to Hawaii, to Bellingham and beyond, trashy fashion continues to challenge communities and foster more sustainable lifestyles.
"It's taken off big time," Worley said. "We're just the pioneers."
In a year of anniversaries, the Planet Magazine celebrating 30 years and the RE Store commemorating 16, recycle artists and advocates challenge you to reuse, reduce, and most importantly: RE think.
Megan Brown studies communication and journalism. She has been published in The Western Front.