Junk into Funk: NDP students design eco-friendly fashion

TOWSON – At first glance, the sleek dresses featured at a high-energy Feb. 15 fashion show at Notre Dame Preparatory School appeared to be made of the finest materials.

Upon closer look, however, it could been seen that the clothing was made from recycled material – foil juice packets, plastic grocery bags, soda-can tabs, junk mail and more.

Notre Dame Prep’s Abby Kozlowski sports her design featuring broken compact discs for the school’s CW Project Greenway fashion show February 15, 2023 in Towson. (Kevin J. Parks/CR Staff)

NDP’s annual “Claire Wagonhurst Project Greenway” for the all-girls high school, complete with spotlights and a runway, provided students with the opportunity to explore “haute couture” in a creative, artistic and environmentally friendly way.

Seniors Ashley Jenkins and Meg Bowen, along with junior Aanya Chawla, were this year’s Project Greenway managers.

“Everyone has worked so hard and worked so well together,” Jenkins said. “It’s really great to just do something for the environment.”

Chawla said the biggest challenge was getting all of the designs and models to finish on time. One of the highlights was seeing how the designs evolved.

“We all shared the work,” Bowen said. “It was a little hectic at some points, but it was fun.”

NDP art teacher Anne Walker is one of the founding faculty members of Project Greenway and this is her last year at the school because she is relocating to Virginia in the summer.

Walker, who has been on staff at NDP for 25 years, credits the students for the program’s success.

“Students initiated it and it’s completely run by students,” Walker said. “They wanted to create something for students who aren’t in the art program or the art classes and maybe not even members of our honor society to participate in. And, it’s a schoolwide activity. The girls love it and that’s why I love it too.”

Project Greenway has 32 designs with 79 student models and designers.

NDP’s middle school has a similar program called “Middle Made,” which had 16 designs with two or three students on each design team. This year’s theme was “Clothe Yourself with Grace,” and the guest judge was Claire Yokum, a 2011 graduate who is an area fashion retail professional.

Two professional judges were on hand – Edina Hiser, class of 2015, and a professional costume designer for TV, theater and film in Los Angeles; and Ella Pritzker, a Baltimore-based couture designer.

“It was so nice to come back and see all of the students and what they achieved and how far this show has come since I did it,” Hiser said.

There is definitely a buzz among the student body for the event.

Notre Dame Prep seniors Lily O’Reilly, left, and Kristina Melegari explain their dress design during the school’s CW Project Greenway fashion show during the school’s CW Project Greenway February 15, 2023, in Towson. (Kevin J. Parks/CR Staff)

“All the materials are recycled, recyclable or repurposed,” Walker said. “Those are things that would otherwise become waste. The students are passionate about their efforts to make a greener world. The creativity is wonderful because it’s all student-done. There’s no teacher-mentoring in the actual fabrication; although, we do help out a little bit if it’s not going to stay together.”

NDP’s National Art Honor Society and the art department sponsor Project Greenway, which was started in 2011 as an experiment in art, design and sustainability.

After the death of NDP art student Claire Wagonhurst as a senior in 2014 due to adolescent melanoma, the event was named in her honor and includes an educational component for participants. Her mother, Marianne Banister, made introductory remarks.

“For us, the fact that they honor our daughter means the world because this was so important to her at NDP,” Banister said. “It spoke to her heart and her creativity. Watching these young women grow with this over the years from when Claire and Edina were working on this together, it’s just so amazing.”

NDP seniors Madison Villarba and Bernadette Ramoy collaborated on a dress called “The Final Pieces.” The top of the dress is made with contact lens cases, the base has a t-shirt and the bottom consists of pieces of plastic, which were painted to create a mosaic stained-glass pattern.

“When we were thinking of the idea for this dress, we both wear contacts, so we noticed we were collecting a lot of contact lens cases,” Villarba said. “We continued to think about it and we noticed we used plastics a lot in our daily lives and we decided to use plastic in the dress.”

Their interest in Project Greenway began even before they attended high school.

“In eighth grade, we were looking at NDP,” Ramoy said, “and one of the traditions they had was Project Greenway and we wanted to be part of that.”

Project Greenway also prepares the students for the future. Many of them pursue careers with design and the event gives them a taste of life within that industry.

Walker said seeing the students’ potential and creativity is a major attraction of the event.

“A lot of our girls go onto design fields once they leave here,” the art teacher said. “This gives some of them a taste for fashion design. We have a few students interested in fashion design and fashion marketing. We have some who go into interior design and architecture. So all of those fields are kind of explored through Project Greenway.”

To view a video of the event, visit: https://youtube.com/shorts/6o4OUstFgJc

To view more photographs from the fashion show, click below: