Pfadfinder Pfashion Show

The scout hall was alive tonight with music, dancing, food and fashion.

The joeys, cubs and parents were treated to a fashion show and disco tonight, put on by the older scouts and venturers.

Guests were treated to some healthy nibbles and delicious cake in our foyer area  to begin the evening (thanks to our volunteers who helped prepare the food).

Scouts had been learning this term about how the fashion industry is the world’s second-largest polluter and how the world consumes 80 billion pieces of clothing EACH YEAR.  Australians are the world’s second largest consumers of fashion, consuming 27kg of new clothing per person, on average, EACH YEAR.

In response to learning this, Pfadfinder took action.  We collected donations of unwanted clothing, and got busy up-cycling it into inventive new garments or re-purposing it into decorative useful furniture and cushions.  To showcase our knowledge and efforts, we put on a fashion show to educate the younger scouts and their families.

On the night of the fashion show, guests were seated around our runway, and were educated by two of our scouts who gave an informative presentation about some of the appalling facts we had learned about the clothing industry’s environmental impact, the terrible working conditions for labourers, and the dreadful pollution caused by dyeing fabrics.  Our scout hosts urged guests to only buy what is really necessary, think about where garments come from, and purchase second hand.

Guests were then treated to an upbeat presentation of the three “looks” the scouts had created for the Pfadfinder Pfashion show:  Haus, hats and jeans.   Our Venturer scouts kindly became our sound & light crew, using a light-show board they had created in their electronics workshops last term.

Our models each did a wonderful job of presenting the garments and household objects they had designed and created.  Below are a few sample photos.

Here, a previously unwanted but now decorative and useful office chair makes its debut in our fashion Haus collection:

Hats, hats, hats…

An unwanted umbrella was transformed into a delightful be-ribboned parasol:

Shirts were redesigned as skirts and tops…  and other inventive ways to wear and upcycle unwanted garments were on display:

Even the Roman look is making a come-back to the houses of haut couture:

Our stunning jeans collection hit the cat-walk tonight to wow the crowd:

As a finale, some of the models came out wrapped in sheeting, which they cast off simultaneously to reveal their fabulous jeans collection, and kick off the evening’s disco party for all the guests.

Did you know:  polyester does not biodegrade but instead sheds micro-fibres which enter and damage our waterways; cotton dyeing is poisoning the world’s rivers;  clothing industry wages are as low as $1-$3/day; beading and sequins are an indication of child labour; a $5 tshirt has passed through many hands on its journey from field to store… and is designed not to last, so you must purchase another one;  one pair of jeans requires 7000 litres of water during production (which is how much a person would drink over 5 or 6 years); clothing production consumes an unsustainable 32 million Olympic swimming pools of water each year; and $2.6 billion is spent on Halloween costumes every year – worn for one night only.

A useful resource for finding out how ethical your garments really are can be found here.

Think twice before you buy – chances are you don’t even really need that garment or could get it second-hand and save the planet and its people!