From waste to wearable fashion

In a stunning display of creativity and environmental awareness, student designers turn discarded materials into fashion statements, Chen Xue reports.

It's no ordinary dress. It's a creation fashioned from unconventional materials: the sweeping hemline is repurposed from a recycled tarp banner of a school lecture event; the upper section is made by the leftover fabric of a design student's project; decorative elements are made from food delivery bags, soda cans, and plastic bottles.

Yes, it's a dress made from what most people would call "trash".

This unique creation is just one of the 24 fashion items presented at this year's Trash Fashion Show, held last month at New York University Shanghai (NYU Shanghai). The creative minds behind this dress are Wang Kaidi, 18, and Yang Huiyi, 20, both first-year students at the university.