Worn Again II: Friday June 27, Republic
Team Worn Again sticks with the old adage of “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” or in this case, runway-worthy high fashion. With their 2nd annual “recycled” fashion show, Worn Again NOLA II, Team Worn Again challenges artists and designers to what founder Garyt Shiflett calls an exercise in “controlled creative recycling” at Republic, who has donated the space for the evening.
Proceeds from the event will restock the storefront for Recycle for the Arts, a “trash-to-art” organization that provides low-cost art materials to the community.
Worn Again NOLA II contestants who are 16-years-old and older receive a randomly assigned bag of fabric and clothing and have just fourteen days to turn their nothings into somethings and model them on the runway at the June 27 event. “You get what we give you, but you have the creative freedom,” Shiflett says. The top three contestants will receive top-notch designing supplies, including a new sewing machine. Registration is $10.
Worn Again NOLA II will feature three other contests, including Worn Again Jr., featuring designers between 8 and 15 years old, who, after a few sewing lessons, have six weeks to work on their submission before it hits the runway. Winners receive a cash prize. Registration is $10.
The Thrift Store Art Edit gives artists two weeks to “edit” an assigned thrift store-find—the artist can either be inspired by their find or create something completely different. Registration is $5.
Finally, ten teams of four to six dancers will compete in the Recycled Dance Competition. The dancers will be randomly assigned a music video with three weeks to learn its respective dance routine. The event crowd chooses the winner. Registration is $10.
On June 7, Shiflett and his Team will hand out anything-goes grab bags of fabric to the competing designers.
Instead of relying solely on donations and help from CraigList ads and classifieds, Shiflett searched for a few generous fabric stores, finding upholstery scraps and clothing beyond repair. “I try to find homes for clothes not even a thrift store would want,” he says. Fortunately, Shiflett grabbed plenty of raw materials from a charitable fabric store and also filled two trucks worth of fabric from a store closing in Elmwood, saving mountains of fabric from a landfill and putting it all into the hands of recycle-savvy designers. “I hope they come up, like, ‘Hey, I really made something out of that pile of shit you gave me,’” Shiflett says.
This year’s sign-up sheet already surpasses last year’s total, with more than thirty designers registered before the deadline. Karen Kempf from Recycle for the Arts anticipates more than fifty total registered designers by the June 7th deadline.
Shiflett and Kempf, the newest member of the Team, joined forces in 2007 when Team Worn Again adopted Recycle for the Arts as its non-profit of choice. But the Team first stitched together as an assignment Shifflet received in class while in college in Virginia. His art direction professor asked the students to develop an event to support a nonprofit. After presenting his idea for the proto-Team, Shiflett’s professor pulled him aside and told him to go for it.
Co-founded with Anna Virginia in 2005, the Team’s fashion show proceeds benefited the Virginia Breast Cancer Foundation. But in 2007, Shiflett moved to New Orleans, leaving Anna in control of the Virginia Team. Finding kinship with the Green Project’s Recycle for the Arts, Team Worn Again, along with Kempf, launched their first event at the Green Project in 2007.
Shiflett plans to turn Team Worn Again into an official New Orleans nonprofit with a storefront and basing its efforts around a local creative community and its vendors.
“It’s not just deconstructing, it’s turning it into something else.”
TEAM WORN AGAIN PRESENTS: A NIGHT OF RECYCLED CREATIVITY, the 2nd annual fundraiser benefiting Recycle for the Arts, Friday June 27, The Republic, 828 S. Peters New Orleans
Worn Again Jr. Runway Show - 6pm
Worn Again NOLA 2 Runway Show - 8pm
Recycled Dance Competition - 9pm
Thrift Store Art Edit - all night
—Alex Woodward
