Making stylish use of the unwanted

The trend of making use of recycled materials in fashion design is spreading to schools, with students from Renaissance College now giving discarded materials a second life.

On Wednesday, students will show their concern for the environment by presenting a fashion show and exhibition, and they have dubbed their trash fashion 'trashion'.

Year 13 student Louis Kang came up with the trashion idea as a way of raising awareness of recycling in his school and in the community in an amusing way.

'The trashion concept shows that you can create something beautiful out of almost anything. Also, you can make trash into art,' he said.

The students have done everything, from generating ideas to organising and running the show and exhibition. Head designer of the show, Year 13 student Jane Tan, and her team picked the 13 best design collections submitted by students.

'Each designer has to produce a collection of three garments based on one theme. Materials are not limited, as long as they are recycled materials. They have to be very creative and think out of the box,' Jane said.

Jane's collection 'Warrior' makes use of paper origami, garbage bags and tin cans. 'We have to fight to get our environment better, fight to protest [against the state of] our planet,' Jane said, explaining her design concept.

Bernice Liu, another Year 13 designer, took another tack.

'My theme is hippies because they live in peace with the environment,' she said.

Bernice made use of leftover straws found in the school's fun fair last year and added in recycled bags.

Bernice also co-ordinated with green groups in Hong Kong to collect recycled materials for the team.

The trashion show is open to the public.

Anyone who would like to take a closer look at the students' creative, professional designs are welcome to visit the school on Wednesday.