CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — After a successful debut event in 2014, the Hatch Trashion Show will return Feb. 27 to Urbana’s Lincoln Square as part of the two-week-long Hatch Creative-Reuse Art Festival. Hatch organizers are seeking individuals who want to show the community that sundry discarded everyday items — from plastic bottles, newspapers and magazines to billboard fabric, food packaging and unwanted CDs — can be reused, not just recycled, and creatively transformed into fanciful clothing and costumes.
“Trashion shows — think trashion + fashion — are popping up everywhere these days, and the Hatch Trashion show is putting Champaign-Urbana on the reuse-couture map,” said Gail Rost, Co-Chair of the Hatch festival.”
The Trashion show is just one of several events and activities planned to take place at various venues throughout Champaign County during the Hatch festival, which runs Feb. 26 through March 14. A complete festival schedule is on the Hatch 2015 website.
“There’s almost no limit to the materials that can be used to create clothing and accessory designs that can be modeled at the Hatch Trashion Show,” Rost said. Designers can enter in categories ranging from “Unconventional Materials” to “Altered Clothing”; both require that 60 percent of the materials used are repurposed or recycled. New this year: the “Paper” category, in which source material can be any type of paper product (with an 85 percent repurposed/recycled requirement); and a division just for accessories.
Rost said people don’t need to be experienced fashion designers or artists to get involved in the Trashion Show.
“It’s all about fun and pushing the limits of our community’s collective imagination. The show is open to people of all ages and levels of sophistication — from school children to college students, from budding fashion designers to their grandparents. Designers can model their own designs or have someone else show off their creations. Groups are also encouraged to enter and can do so as a single entry.”
While organizers expect once again to see some top-notch practical and whimsical designs on the runway, designers and models alike may appear slightly more relaxed at the 2015 event.
“That’s because the emphasis will be on the show — without the competition factor. We’ve dropped the judging component,” Rost said.
For ideas, potential participants can view a video of the 2014 Trashion show on the Hatch website. More information about the show, including an online registration form, also can be found there.
The registration deadline is Feb. 12; the entry fee is $15. The show itself, which begins at 6 p.m. on Feb. 27 in the center atrium of Lincoln Square, is free and open to the public.
Hatch: a creative-reuse art festival is produced by The I.D.E.A. Store. The store is the area’s premier creative-reuse marketplace and an earned-income social enterprise of the Champaign Urbana Schools Foundation.