Artsist Statement

Madison M.

8th Grade*

I began making dresses for the Trashion Show at my elementary school since I was in third grade. A trashion show is a fashion show that my elementary school did that happened on every Earth Day. In honor of Earth Day the clothes had to be made of trash or recyclable items, anything that would be thrown away without a second thought. These three dresses show my growth as a dressmaker and costume designer over the last five years. (Future Rose Teagarten here: This was around 2016-2017.) I named my artist statement Trashion Show History because I made two and partially three of these for the Trashion Show and also all the pieces are inspired by the Victorian era which is my favorite era. (Future Rose Teagarten here: This Artist Statement originally included three sections for my gallery about the three different dresses on display but for my webiste I have split up the artist statements on different pages to cover each piece individually.)

Modern Fashion Fish Tail and Shredded Bustle

This is one of the ones from my trashion show days. It actually acted as two different dresses from when I did the Trashion Shows. This dress is inspired from the Victorian era, which was and is my favorite era then and now. I made it originally in 3rd grade for my first Trashion Show, but it looked very different then and was not inspired from the Victorian era. It was originally a much more modern fashion walkway type of dress that was between knee and ankle length and had a fringe made out of more colorful plastic bags. It had straps instead of long sleeves and I wore bubble wrap as a type of shawl. I made it by weaving together plastic bags, that my mum had saved, on a loom that I had. After making the plastic bags into woven fabric I sewed it together with more plastic bags, and put bits of plastic bags in my hair, into the dress I wore for my third grade trashion show.

Then for my fourth grade trashion show I turned that dress into the dress you see now before you. As I have said it is inspired by my love of the Victorian era. I added additional pieces of woven plastic bag to make it longer and made long sleeves also out of plastic bags. I have also put up the loom I used with a half finished piece of woven plastic bags that I did not end up finishing or using on the dress (Future Rose Teagerten here: This was next to the dress in the gallery and I allowed people to touch it and there is a picture with this loom on its section in early years). Then after weaving together the base of the dress, I took some more plastic bags as well as some old bits of scrap fabric and shredded it all into strands and then sewed them all together and attached them to a plastic box to give it more shape. This all created a shredded bustle that I could attach to the main dress, creating a classic Victorian look from the 1870s. Then I wore it down the trashion catwalk and the rest is trashion show history.

*Future Rose Teagarten here: While this artist statement is written in 8th grade it was created in the 4th grade.