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Sustainable fashion show debuts tonight

By Jennifer Torline

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Sustainable clothing will be all the rage at tonight’s “Art on the Green” Spring Student Night at the Spencer Museum of Art.

Local designers will show off their fashions made from recycled fabrics and organic or fair trade cloth during the night’s sustainable fashion show.

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The Spencer Museum of Art will host its annual Spring Student Night this evening.

The Spencer Museum of Art will host its annual Spring Student Night this evening.

“We decided it was important for different students to be aware of different options they had for clothes and how they could reuse clothes,” Megan Turner, Olathe senior and the museum’s student outreach coordinator, said.

The museum’s Student Advisory Board is sponsoring the event, which lasts from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., and is part of the University’s “From Blue to Green: Conserve KU” month.

While the fashion show will be the focus of the evening, other activities will also adhere to the night’s green theme, based on the “Climate Change at the Poles” and the “Trees & Other Ramifications” exhibitions at the museum.

“Art on the Green”

What: Spencer Museum of Art Student Advisory Board’s Spring Student Night

A night featuring a sustainable fashion show, live music and an artist’s demonstration

When: 6 to 8 tonight

Where: Spencer Museum of Art

Cost: Free

Throughout the evening, Wang Tiande, the museum’s artist-in-residence from China, will demonstrate calligraphy on the sidewalks in front of the museum, and students can also decorate reusable grocery bags with nature stencils. A live bluegrass band and DJ Stackswell will provide music.

To help attract more students to the museum’s exhibitions, advisory board member Sarah Bluvas said the fashion show’s catwalk would be in the galleries.

“We’re trying to get students into the museum and engaging them with the arts and starting new conversations with art,” Bluvas, Atlanta junior said.

The fashion show will include outfits from five different local designers and stores, including Eco Boutique, White Chocolate and Magic Carpet Traveler. Liz Kowalchuk, associate professor of design, and Meghan Arthur, Columbia, Mo., senior, will both have items in the show.

Kowalchuk will show 10 scarves that she made from clothing she found at local thrift stores. She has been creating scarves out of silk clothing for more than five years.

“I like the idea that finding the pieces is part of the creative challenge,” said Kowalchuk, who is also the associate dean for the new School of the Arts. “It’s a constraint, but it’s also a terrific challenge to buy clothing that has been discarded and see how I can remake it new.”

Several of Arthur’s sustainable fashions, including dresses, overalls and a pantsuit, will be in this evening’s show. Arthur began designing clothes a few months ago after buying a sewing machine. Several dresses and skirts later, she now uses natural or recycled fabrics to create sustainable clothes for herself and others.

“Fashion is something I’ve always been interested in,” Arthur said.

The fashion show will also feature sustainable accessories, including bamboo or coconut earrings.

Arthur is turning several of the museum’s durable art posters into purses, messenger bags and grocery bags which she will sell at the museum’s gift shop during the coming months.

But she insists anyone can maintain a sustainable wardrobe.

Arthur said one way to make a more environmentally-friendly wardrobe is by recycling clothes or adjusting them. For instance, making a pair of pants with an extra long hemline will last for a longer time.

“I’m all about really classic pieces that are made well and can grow with you,” Arthur said.

Bluvas said sustainable fashion played an important part in art and the environment, something that the student board wanted to portray in its student night.

Student Night is more than students getting together for a fun party, Bluvas said. It is students trying to start a conversation about the possibilities of art in today’s world.

“Everybody’s talking about sustainability, the environment and climate change,” Bluvas said. “Right now, we’re interested in how art plays into that.”

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