To end the last club meeting of Fashion club’s first year April 17, junior president Brooke McKee and junior vice president Dana Kalt showed their club how to upcycle old, used clothing to new fashion. 

“My goal for the club is to inspire and teach the members about the fashion industry,” McKee said. “I also want to teach them sustainable methods of upcycling clothing.”

Students brought old shirts and pants and were taught to crop, patch, sequin and find new ways to revamp their old clothing. Rather than have their own club shirts, they used this upcycling day as a way to customize their own fashion club clothing to suit their own unique styles. Each member was able to decide what piece of clothing they wanted as well as what design and look they chose to go after. A main goal of Fashion club is for each individual to find their own different styles and interests and find ways to implement them in the latest fashion trends. Through this upcycling experiment, everyone was allowed their own opportunity to submerge themselves in the fashion designing world according to Mckee.

“I love how everyone gets to put their own twist to our club shirts,” junior Libby Slaymaker said. “It is cool to see everyone’s own personality through the clothing they choose to design.”

Throughout the year Fashion club members learned the latest fashion trends, designed jean jackets for the gala and learned to draw fashion sketches to ultimately create their own clothing. During the final meeting they put all they have learned throughout the year to develop their own style to previous clothing.

“My favorite thing about fashion club is all the creativity it offers,” freshman Kate Lovick said.

The club previously brought in guest speaker fashion sketcher

Shannon Curry-Rackers to help members learn sketching before formulating their own clothing and sketching on fashion models. She helped individuals learn how to allow clothing to fit certain body types as well as manipulate stitching to get the certain fit you want. Students used this knowledge while upcycling to help form their ideal clothing to their wants. All previous meetings about learning fashion techniques and basic information about the industry helped individuals make their personalized jean shorts, jean jackets, and sweatshirts.

“I really liked the speaker that came in and showed us the different types of fashions,” sophomore Emily Bukaty said. “I liked learning how to sketch my own fashion and customizing it to what I wanted.”