The company teamed up with Brighton Fashion Week to sponsor the ‘Sustain Show’ and make the dress which took 72 hours to create and is made entirely out of recyclable materials collected from the local Hollingdean Materials Recovery Facility (MRF).
Sponsoring the ‘Sustain Show’ which focuses on sustainable fashion was the perfect opportunity to raise awareness of Veolia’s Living Circular campaign www.livingcircular.veolia.com/en a resource that is designed to provide inspiration and ideas on sustainable living.
Veolia believes in the ingenuity of individuals, designers, thinkers and creators and in their ability to shape a form of development that is more mindful of our resources. With this in mind Veolia bought on board fashion house Dumpster Design who specialise in the design and creation of commissioned couture pieces, made entirely from recycled materials.
Inspired by wanting to tackle today’s throw-away mentality, Dumpster Design takes an eco-friendly approach to fashion, resulting in unconventional and eye-catching wearable art. Focusing on drawing attention to the fact that Veolia process five separate streams of waste at the Materials Recovery Facility in Hollingdean, Dumpster Design was tasked with creating a dress incorporating each of these five streams of recyclable material.
The aim when designing the dress was to try and capture Veolia’s underlining campaign in ‘Resourcing the world’. Daisy Harris-Burland from Dumpster Design cut hundreds of leaf shapes out of each material, and an autumnal themed Living Circular Dress started to take shape.
With each leaf being hand cut and shaped, the dress encompasses intricate detail, style and panache, adding to the magnificent end result. The striking silhouette is formed from a papier-mâché base, using only recycled materials. The final creation accentuates the beauty of items that might otherwise be thrown away, breathing new life to discarded objects.
Fashion designer, Daisy Harris-Burland comments "The Dumpster Design dress, created for Veolia, is hand crafted and brings new life and beauty to life’s throw away materials. The dress embodies the concept of Veolia’s Living Circular campaign, clearly showing each stream of material processed throughout the Materials Recovery Facility. The unparalleled level of handcrafted quality and meticulous attention to detail highlights that Veolia is so much more than the standard environmental services company"
Allan Key General Manager for Veolia South Downs said: “We need to start thinking now about how to lock urban lifestyles into more sustainable pathways. We already have much of the technology we need to recycle, recover and reuse precious resources, but we also need a shift in public attitudes and greater engagement from businesses, highlighting sustainable fashion at the ‘Sustain Show’ is a great place to start.”
The Living Circular Dress will be showcased at the Sustain Fashion Show Event at Brighton Fashion Week on Friday 10th October visit www.brightonfashionweek.com for tickets.