Recycling tents for clothing

A fashion student created a gender-neutral dress out of tent fabric to promote sustainability and inclusiveness in fashion. Grace Reeves, who is a final-year fashion design student at Nottingham Trent University, in Nottingham, England, was motivated to build the piece when she witnessed a massive number of tents being left over after a festival. With a desire to promote “inclusiveness” in fashion, Reeves has tried to create the clothing to fit every size, calling it size U or Universal. The undergraduate has also designed her branding in braille. 

“I want to change people’s perception of secondhand items by creating something technical and different,” Reeves says. “It’s a shame that people don’t learn textile crafts in school and that’s the reason they throw away clothes, because they don’t know how to fix them. One of my goals is to make sustainable clothing more affordable.” 

The clothing is detachable so that it could be transformed from high-end fashion clothing to a normal jacket. “My concept is that life is a game, you can go to a party and later decide to climb a mountain in the same clothes. I really like versatility,” she says.