I had the pleasure of attending the fabulous and stylish ‘rubbish meets couture’ Junk to Funk 2008 last Saturday night. What a night of extravaganza MC’d by Portland’s mayor-elect Sam Adams and Tara from 94.7 fm radio.

Once a year, the Junk to Funk Recycled Fashion Show Contest, produced by Elysium Events is created to showcase wearable art based on the creative use of “trash.” These pieces of wearable art and fashion are based upon found objects, recycled materials, and items that would typically be sent to the landfill.

Dress for the Queen of Clubs, (shown above) and designed by China Hamilton was created with shopping bags, kitchen drawer lining, automotive pin striping, discarded tubing, old packaging foam and stockings made out of shower puffs.

This wonderful gown Zippidy Doo Da, was created and modeled by Ruth Waddy. The dress, made out of zippers, and re-used plastic bubble wrap was awarded third place.

Madame Bottle Fly, designed (and modeled) by Emie Otis of Beauty Mark Designs, was made with over 600 bottle caps attached to a delicate wire frame (made out of over 30 wire hangers) weighing in at 45 pounds, and demanding over nearly 450 hours of work. What a gorgeous work of wearable art.

Couch Couture, designed by “K” is made out of old couches, human hair, recycled hardware and died sheets feathers and sticks. CC won second place at the event. What a marvelous blend of soft and edgy.

Re-Vogue was created by Lia Griffith and worn by Erin Mintun. This gorgeous dress is made out of old vogue magazines.

Your Kitty’s Business Suit, created by Cheryl Lohrmann and worn by Tanya Cheeke-Icoz is made out of cat litter bags.

Queen’s New Gown, (Goddess bless the Queen) created and modeled by Geneva Sutter is made out of newspapers and scrap fabric.

Breadwinner, created by Kristina Stuart and Emalee Wilson, and worn by Kris Rahja is made out of bread bags. Very clever.

Portland Mosaik, created by Emily Lalande and Kylie Johnson, and worn by Sarah Miller. The front part of the dress is made out of Nordstrom bags, seat-belts and soda-pop-cans. The skirt is made out of a re-purposed tent, the back part made out of a dress and zippers around the neck.

Backstage before the show.

Backstage (that’s me on the right) interviewing designer Emie Otis. I’m wearing her “Pretty in Peacockery’ dress, last year’s 4th place winner, (see above and below) made out of grocery bags, broken cds glued onto the dress for glitter, a bike tire for the strap and recycled VCR tape for the train. The hat is made out of blue paint tape. Thank-you Emie for loaning me the dress. Perhaps next year I’ll be on the runway, too.

Meeting Portland’s Mayor-Elect Sam Adams backstage.

Sam is wearing a recycled couture plastic tuxedo jacket and bow tie. For more on Portland’s progressive Mayor-Elect, visit the website: www.commissionersam.com. For more on Junk to Funk visit: www.junktofunk.org.

Photographs by PPnG contributing photographer Philip Morgan: www.philipmorgan.net.

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