one person's trash is another's fash(ion)

The city of San Francisco recently banned plastic grocey bags. It seems like a little thing, but estimates are that about 200 million plastic bags are used each year in the city of 740,000 people. Two hundred million. That's 270 bags per person per year. That's a lot of waste.

Art student Emily (aka Flickr user mleak) dealt with these disposable bags in her own way: she constructed a dress out of Safeway grocery bags. She collected bags, then ironed them together (using newspaper between the bags and the iron) to create a fabric, from which she sewed the dress. I don't know if she intended for her work to have any kind of environmental message, but I can't help looking at the dress without thinking that those bags usually end up as landfill. A nice reminder to bring along a cloth bag when you go shopping.

Here are some more photos of the dress in action - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 - and on the hanger.

I came across this dress in a Flickr group called Trashionista: sustainable style and recycled fashion.

The group's admin is OutsaPop, a talented gal based in Finland, who recently made a fantastic runway dress out of old ties and a corset. It took about 60 ties to make. You can see more pics of the work in progress here - 1, 2, 3 - and keep track of her fashion work and inspiration on her blog.