Music echoed in San Jose State University’s campus village quad as models strutted down the runway in outfits made from recycled trash on Tuesday evening.

Just in time for Earth day, SJSU’s Associated Students programming board debuted its sixth annual Trashion Fashion show.

“We like to advocate for saving our planet Earth,” said Tiffany Wang, the A.S. director of programming affairs. “Trashion Fashion show is an entertaining way of having students design outfits made out of things they would typically just throw away in the trash.”

The Trashion Fashion show is designed to raise awareness by encouraging students to create and model their own handmade garments made from at least 80 percent of post-consumer materials, according to Wang.

“I truly believe in the saying ‘one man’s trash is another man’s treasure,’” Wang said. “It’s important to be aware of that and learn different techniques to better reuse what we have.”

Divided into two segments, the first portion of the show consisted of outfits from local second-hand stores, Plato’s Closet and Tri-City, Wang said.

During the twenty-minute intermission, the Greenest Greek was awarded to the Sigma Nu Fraternity for conserving the most water, natural gas and electricity during the past six weeks.

In the final portion of the show, a total of 12 designers and 25 models made their way down the catwalk in hopes of taking home the $150 gift card grand prize.

Designers were equipped with one or two models depending on the number of outfits they submitted, although there were some designers that preferred to wear their own garments down the runway.

Bags of Doritos and coffee filters were among some of the material designers used to construct their outfits.

Mary Yan, a junior environmental studies major, saved all of the packaging paper products she would have normally thrown away to create her award-winning dress.

“I collected so much trash for this and it turns out I get things shipped to me a lot, which I feel really guilty about at this point,” Yan said. “But this just shows that instead of throwing your trash into a landfill that will just accumulate overtime, it can be transformed into a cute DIY outfit.”

Yan won third place for her innovative design that consisted of a corset made of twisted packaging paper on top and layers of rolled up magazine paper on bottom.

“This was such a awesome way to get creative, reuse and upscale things — all while looking good at the same time,” Yan said.

Designers were judged on creativity and how well they followed the 80 percent post-consumer waste rule.

“All I could think was please don’t trip, please,” said Evelyn Nguyen, a sophomore business major, as she waited for the judge’s results.

Inspired by Mother Nature, Nguyen’s design, titled “Paper Couture,” was made out of tissue flowers, rhinestones and newspaper woven together.

“Drumroll please,” said Rigo Flores, Trashion Fashion show’s emcee. “On three — One, two, three. Evelyn Nguyen.”

Far from falling, Nguyen landed first place among all of the other designers.

“I’m at a loss for words,” Nguyen said. “I was just so inspired by the purpose of this event that I really wanted to show others how you can transform trash into something so beautiful, and I did.”

Second place and a one hundred dollar gift card was awarded to Emily Wheeler, a junior animation illustration major, for her dress made of soda cans, shower curtains, coffee filters and newspaper.

With an audience of about 150 and the number of participants nearly doubling from 2013, the A.S. Trashion Fashion show committee was able to have yet another successful year, Wang said.

“Earth Day is becoming something more and more people want to be a part of,” Wang said. “It’s something that I hope will become a bigger event in the years to come at SJSU.”

Read More: http://www.kissydressinau.com/formal-dresses-canberra