Silver Lining: Lost and Found

This garment was the first-place winner of King’s Plaza x Parsons Recycle the Runway competition. My partner Bridget Campbell and I were assigned the category “household items” for our Parsons first-year studio class final. Inspired when cleaning out the chamber of a vacuum and finding various lost items, we decided to center our garment’s theme around these miniature forgotten household items. Our making process consisted of time-consuming and intricate handwork, embroidering, gluing, sewing, and assembling. Together, over the course of two weeks, we spent several days working on the garment, and additionally on our own time, assembled the chains, straps, and embroidered. In total, the garment reflects over 20 hours of work.

This garment is made with zero fabric: solely out of recycled materials. The straps and top consist of over 750 individual earring backs, hand strung, embroidered, and glued. The base, made of bubble wrap, is fitted to the body and sewn with proper darts, an attached zipper, and hemmed with duct tape. The garment is filled with over 500 soda tabs, along with snaps, paper clips, safety pins, washers, nuts, screws, buttons, and other recycled items, some disassembled from pieces of jewelry we were given for the project. 

By placing these seemingly insignificant items in a new context, we can appreciate the beauty of the most minor details of our lives.