‘Dumpster couture’ to be featured at Green gala for Obama
Santa Fe clothing designer Nancy Judd is expected to take recycled chic to a new level when her “dumpster couture” is showcased this Saturday at the Green Inaugural Ball honouring President-elect Barack Obama in Washington. Models will show the 40-year-old’s creations made from bubble wrap, canvas scraps and Coke cans at the all-organic, $500-a-ticket event expected to draw 1,000, reports the Wall Street Journal. At centre stage will be the long-time environmental activist’s “Obama-wear” stitched together from campaign detritus—the star attraction being a man’s coat made from Obama campaign flyers that took 200 hours to cut and paste and sew. Though energy-efficient, “trashion” isn’t always practical, the paper reports: “An evening gown sparkling with 12,000 bits of glass tends to shed; a fitted jacket cut from the vinyl top of a convertible is so well insulated it doubles as a sweat lodge.” Judd herself admits: “You can’t sit down in any of them.” Karl Lagerfeld would approve. Further stoking the clothing’s exclusivity is the fact that Judd, who has no formal fashion training, refuses to sell it, intending it only as an educative tool. How long, we wonder, before Mrs. O shows up in one of the designer’s slinky black gowns made from canvas scraps and hundreds of rusty nails?