10 Cool Cutting Edge Trash Couture Fashion Designers

Martin Margiela

A former design assistant to the ever-unpredictable and always entertaining French fashion master Jean Paul Gaultier, Belgium born Martin Margiela clearly benefitted from his expert tutelage. Upon forging his own path in 1988, his resulting fashions – which are produced under a conventional label as well as his own limited edition Artisanal line – are infused with an avant-garde edge that makes the most of upcycled vintage materials that are masterfully deconstructed and reconstructed into very edgy, innovative garments. Despite his underground appeal and very low profile, Margiela has enjoyed major acclaim and commercial success with his Hermes affiliation and the acquisition of his brand by Italian clothing design company Diesel.


Angela Johnson

In their song “Rock ‘n Roll Lifestyle”, musical group Cake asked “how much did you pay for your rock ‘n roll t-shirt that proves you were there, that you heard of them first?” I don’t know about everyone else out there, but judging from the stacks of frayed tees cluttering my dresser drawers, I paid far too much…but I can’t ever seem to bid them farewell. Fortunately, Arizona t-shirt upcycler Angela Johnson is on the scene to save our closets from their current bloated condition with her collection of fun-and-funky handcrafted dresses produced from 100% repurposed tees. Whether you send her a collection of your old vintage 80s band tees or you have blind faith in her own selections, she’ll cut and sew the design that you fancy, creating a one-of-a-kind fashion statement that will make you the absolute envy of the ball.


Deborah Linquist

Featured in her 2010 Fall/Winter “Cowgirl Meets Thunderdome” collection, eco-designer Deborah Lindquist teamed up with the brainchild behind Sonic Fabric to create two fashion-forward pieces spun out of recycled cassette tapes. Yes, tapes. Those who are familiar with Alyce Santoro’s clever upcycling company know that she pedals fedoras and limited edition neckties along with her partner Julio Cesar made out of recycled cassette fabric (in a ratio of 50% cassette tape to 50% polyester). What makes them even more unique is that when a tape head is run across the surface of each tie, the wearer can actually hear sound collages from Santoro’s “Between Stations” CD. In her latest collaboration with Linquist, a bustier dress and corset top feature the unique music fabric along with additional eco-friendly elements such as hemp silk and recycled leather.


Nancy Judd

Being an environmental educator has its advantages, especially when you decide to create your very own examples of chic, wearable art using the very materials that you pontificate on during your seminars. For Recycle Runway queen Nancy Judd, it just seemed like a natural extension of her day job and a great way to reinforce the lesson that there is always another practical way to use materials that we’re inclined to drop in our garbage cans. Using VCR tapes as well as Target shopping bags, hand cut aluminum can sequins, artfully folded junk mail and reclaimed advertising materials, Judd has mastered a vintage fashion style that leaves all waste bins quaking in her presence.
 

Orsola de Castro & Filippo Ricci

Sustainable fashion line “From Somewhere” approaches their trashion couture in a slightly different manner than their competitors. After taking a cold hard look at the excess inherent in the fashion industry, they’ve made a name for themselves by converting surplus “luxury designer pre-consumer waste” including silk, cotton, tweed, knitwear and jersey fabric swatches, damaged materials, remaining remnants left on cardboard rolls, production off-cuts and proofs into unique garments that enable the end consumer to play a direct role in walking a far more eco-friendly path. The design team of Orsola de Castro & Filippo Ricci, also founders of London Fashion Week’s British Fashion Council Estethica as well as Tesco Clothing’s F&F Collection, are deeply committed to showing the world that ethically produced, contemporary designs can be created from the dregs of the fashion industry in a way that is equally as stunning as virgin materials.


Gary Harvey

What can a right brained individual do with old jeans, cardboard food packages, wedding dresses, cans, army jackets, logo t-shits, bottle tops and baseball jackets aside from pursuing typical crafty, upcycling projects? If the person happens to be Levi’s former creative director, then they probably have a good handle on the fine art of merchandising and using a few strategic flourishes to create an outstanding presentation…which is precisely what London-based designer Gary Harvey did to rave reviews during New York Fashion Weeks’ 2010 eco-fashion extravaganza, The Green Shows. Harvey is noted for transforming 42 pairs of old Levi’s jeans into a cute short sleeved, multi-toned, flowing frock as well as creating a sassy vintage-style design out of scads of newspaper. His most outstanding achievement, however, has got to be his “Technicolor Dream Dress.” With its body hugging bodice and dramatic floor length skirt, the style could easily compete with mainstream versions…except for its major trashy factor. Discarded consumer packaging is arranged in color-coded style to create textural rainbow sensation that anyone with even 1% fashion sense would happily covet.

 
Rommel Pidazo

Recycled juice box purses and metal beverage pull tab belts can be novel at first, but after a while, consumers tend to become immune to the initial reason that they were created in the first place. However, once you lay your eyes on the transformation that typical garbage-can-bound items undergo via the skillful hands of Philippines based artist and trashion accessory crafter Rommel Pidazo, the visual eco-reinforcement that you’re privy to yields serious staying power. Unlike typical trashion incarnations, Pidazo’s necklaces, belts, vests and bags are composed of raw assemblages of post-consumer materials that are generally deemed completely worthless and undesirable. He applies no cosmetic primping or preening to his selected trashion materials, instead preferring to string them together in their entirely blemished form to create a somehow intriguing and visually arresting statement about our chronically wasteful consumeristic habits.


Emma Kaywin

Okay, so she may not be a full-fledged fashion designer, but New York University student Emma Kaywin enjoyed her time in the spotlight when the press picked up on the surprisingly cute fashion trio she crafted out of expired condoms. Obtained while interning for an HIV hotline, she artfully repurposed hundreds of the prophylactic devices to create two frothy dresses and once equally snazzy coat, all of which could easily be seen gliding down the runway. Kaywin’s designs somehow transcend the ick factor of using condoms, which is no small feat to achieve. Someone give that girl some recycled cat litter to work with…I’m curious to see what she’ll be able to conjure up!
 
 
Linda Filley

Self-proclaimed “paper couturier” Linda Filley crafts fanciful frocks by carefully twisting, pleating, folding and rolling pieces of recycled gift wrap, newspaper, empty seed packets and computer paper, imparting layer upon layer of texture and color to her design. Her “Farmer’s Market Girl” gown features a bodice and sleeves entirely covered with flower photos that are carefully cut from the pages of seed catalogs, while the skirt resembles a garden bursting at the seams with fresh veggie gems just ripe for the picking. To achieve her three dimensional effect, Filley hand-rolled catalog pages into vegetable shapes, augmenting the design with scissor cut images.
 
 
Ziad Ghanem

Lebanese designer Ziad Ghanem has mastered the fine art of creating costumey grandstanding fashion as well as far more wearable yet equally funky urban pieces, both of which make the most of second-hand store finds. Unlike mainstream fashion designers who are responsible for contributing to the industry’s hefty carbon footprint by sourcing 100% virgin materials, Ghanem’s approach revolves around items that are already a part of our consumer stream. As he explains, “in just one of my dresses you can find Versus, M&S, Laura Ashley, Junior Gaultier, Gap and a vintage Sex Pistols T-shirt.”