Upcycling Design Competitions
The program hosts upcycling design competitions to offer students the opportunity to extend their passion for sustainable fashion through creativity and problem-solving. Repurpose brings a new life to something that is used and/or unwanted. Textile waste has become a serious problem for the environment. To reduce textile waste, we can extend the life of clothes by repairing, recycling, and repurposing them. We want to encourage students to think of all the ways they can alter an item to make it one of their dreams, one of a kind, and a unique piece that helps tell a story about who you are.
2023 Upcycling Design Competition
Upcycling Design Challenge is here again! Don’t miss the opportunity. This year, we got production cuts in beautiful silks and linens from Reformation and from Disney TV Shows through our community partner, Roboro. We are looking for students who love fashion and sustainability to showcase their creativity at the Reuse Culture Expo on May 1st, 2023.
Invitation:
All CSUN students interested in fashion are invited to participate in the challenge. In 2018, about 11 million tons of textile waste went to landfills. To reduce textile waste, we can extend the life of our clothes by repairing, recycling, and repurposing them. Think of all the ways you can bring purpose to something that is unwanted and make them into a unique piece that helps tell a story about who you are. Selected finalists chosen by a panel of judges will showcase their designs in the Reuse Culture Expo exhibition on Monday May, 1 2023 at the Northridge Center (USU), California State University, Northridge.
MadaLuxe Design Competition
In collaboration with MadaLuxe, students in both Fashion and Interior Design classes had the opportunity to participate in an Upcycling Design Competition using materials provided by MadaLuxe. The students who participated in the event had the opportunity to showcase their designs at the Sustainable Fashion Show at CSUN.
Interior Design Students
One of the interior design competition winners, Sydney Kwong shared her experience;
"From this experience I learned about how sustainability is so important in design, to conserve what you have and use whatever you can to leave no scraps. For our project we wanted to create a design that would use most of the apparel and accessories so we were using everything to our advantage."
"My groupmate actually came up with the rocking horse idea and then we collaborated with the idea of a patch design using jeans and neon green pleather pants and then using the other side of the horse with the pink fabric from the diaper bag. We ran into some obstacles where we couldn't figure out what to do with some material, but started throwing around ideas about what would look best, and then we had our final product."
"I thoroughly enjoyed the competition, getting to work together as a group with my peers was fun, and getting to hear each other's ideas and be able to bounce off of each other."
"As a group, we all equally worked on the rocking horse design as well as the rag tie rug design to create the best product we could make. I helped with the structure of the rocking horse and added little elements to the design as well as worked on the rag tie rug."
This competition will help me as an interior designer because of how sustainability is super important to be incorporated in the design and how designers should be aware of what materials they are using and how they can use those materials to help their surrounding environment.
Fashion Design Students
