Story & photos Eve Jeffery
Kloset 2 Kostume: Celebrity Couture is a free six-week group course held at the Byron Youth Activity Centre and led by Kia Wasley.
Kia, who has just completed year 12, has received a Small Change Grant from Byron Shire to realise her vision of recycling/upcycling discarded clothes and turning them into unique costumes.
‘I have always liked dressing up and I thought “why buy it when I can make it?”’ said Kia. ‘You can make old into new, recycle and remake.’
Kia has organised the free (for 16- to 21-year-olds) course to design and create theatre costumes that stand out and to promote sustainability while building positive and creative relationships between young people in the Shire.
‘I have always wanted to do a textiles course and I have always been interested in fashion and costume design’, says Kia.
‘I have always wanted to make op-shop clothes into new high fashion.’
Kia hopes to learn more about textiles and fashion and start her own label one day, with one part of her stock being unique one-offs made from the oppy.
‘I’d like to get my fashions out there as well as working behind the scenes in movies and Broadway and make costumes for productions.’
For more information about the course, call the BYS on 6685 7777.
What a inspiring young women. There are so much cloth going into landfill in Australia, not to add all the environmental foot prints of making new cloth. So thank you for being wise and your leadership.