Year 9 Textiles students Beverly Watson, Jia Ying Chen and Sarah Abood with their denim jacket designs.
THE ONLY jackets that usually cause a buzz at St Norbert College are the Year 12s’ leaver’s jackets, handed out at the start of Term 2 and worn with pride by the graduating class in their final year.
But over the past few weeks in the Textiles room, Year 9 students have been focussing on making what’s old new again and creating a keepsake of their own – denim jackets adorned with decorative techniques of applique and free-machine embroidery, learnt during the term.
Textiles students were given the choice of creating a new product or designing a back panel of a plain denim jacket – as a nod to the benefits of recycling.
“Upcycling is a simple yet underrated concept that really puts recycling into practice,” explains Jia Ying Chen. “Not only are you saving material from landfill, you get to produce something that you can genuinely enjoy and feel proud of because you’ve created it yourself with little cost. It’s a win-win situation and can really challenge you to think creatively to use what you’ve got while contributing for a good cause.”
Jia created a mosaic-like portrait that combined fabrics, painting and the embroidering of a butterfly (pictured below, right). “I decided to create my piece based on a butterfly rising and overpowering a darkness, which hopefully can be read from the panel,” she explains.
Sarah’s fashion statement is a bright design inspired by “Ms Mark’s applique example”. “I wanted to create something similar but add my own creative twist to it,” she said.
Look closely and you can see a woman’s fact in the mosaic of pink, purple, red and yellow fabric.
“The best thing about upcycling fashion is how fun it is to turn something old into something new and at the same your reducing the amount of waste that ends up in landfill,” Sarah said.
The students’ jackets will be featured among a huge array of student works at the College’s annual Creative Arts Exhibition, which opens on Tuesday, 13 Sept at 6pm, at the Xanten Performing Arts Centre and runs until Friday 16 Sept.
The exhibition of art, photography, wood, metals and food science is a free community event.
