St Ignatius’ recycled material costume show

Students from St Ignatius’ Years 3 and 5 demonstrate
that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, at a
special parade of costumes made from recycled
material. The youngsters used everyday rubbish to
create high fashion designs.

Stefan Langlois, in his ‘Super Guy’ costume. He
worked with Taurean Cox and Mathew McLaughlin to
make his costume from cardboard, newspaper,
bottles, plastic cups, egg cartons, inner roles from
toilet paper, and a popped balloon.

Danielle Boothe in her ‘Miss Cayman’ costume, made
with the help of fellow student, Arianna Broderick.
The costume is made from an old dress, tissue paper,
and cardboard.

Tuesday,  January 31, 2006

St Ignatius School Years 3 and 5 held a costume show for parents in the school’s courtyard on Thursday 25 January.

The art teacher in charge of the project, Stephanie Vandem, said, “The students used recycled material such as newspapers, plastic bottles, soda cans, fabric, and sweet wrappers.”

Just over 100 children took part in the project, from Classes 3T, 3H, 5L and 5H, which took up around five art lessons to prepare. 

“The students did their own designs, and worked in partnership with other students,” Ms Vandem said.

“When they had designed their own ideas, they chose their partners and looked at each other’s drawings so they came up with the final design between two or three of them. 

“Meanwhile they were asked to collect, clean and save food packaging, or any old clothes that they might be able to recycle,” Ms Vandem said

“When they brought these things to class we went through pictures of other costumes that were made in that way. I trained as a costume designer, so I have a lot of photographs of fashion shows,” she explained. 

“We live in an Island and we do nothing with our rubbish. In my view it is extremely important we have to think long term because the Island cannot contain the rubbish. The tourism industry depends on the beauty of the Island. 

It involves changing our habits of disposal and like any change of habit it can be quite stressful, but once you have acquired the habit of putting things in certain bins and not throwing them away it becomes second nature,” she said.

    Back...