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Models wear milk jugs at UNC Workroom's FashionMash

Student and local fashion designs will take the runway at the FashionMash show Saturday.

There will be a panel discussion Sunday, which is open to the public and will feature successful fashion insiders, including representatives from Cartier and Refinery 29. The discussion will focus on leadership in the fashion industry.

Through UNC Workroom, an experiential design initiative in the school of Media and Journalism, students have put together a fashion show to showcase their work. Students and local designers are contributing fashion designs from casual streetwear to haute couture.

“It’s a good balance between student work and professional work in a couple different categories,” said Dana McMahan, the founder of Workroom and a UNC professor.

Student models will display three lines of fashion, including the works of Luis Machicao, a professional designer from Charlotte, a student-designed streetwear line for Cartier and more student designs pertaining to the theme, “Grunge Save the Queen,” which highlights upcycled clothing designs.

“It really covers the refined and the rough, and how those two things come together,” McMahan said. “That’s been done by a group of students working on their own as designers, but collectively under this one concept.”

Senior Alexandra Hehlen, the editor of Coulture fashion magazine and one of the show’s student designers, created an upcycled wedding dress made entirely out of recycled plastic products that she will also be modeling on the runway.

“I called the dress ‘Married to Plastic,’” Hehlen said. “To make a social commentary about how we use far too many plastics in our everyday lives.”

The dress features a “feather” bodice made entirely out of plastic milk jugs that she cut to look like feathers, and the skirt is made of silver plastic table cloths that she took from a party she attended.

“I collected milk jugs for months — my parents really hated me because I was stockpiling them in our house,” Hehlen said. “And it’s actually pretty comfortable, just a little pokey under the arms.”

In addition to the student models on the runway, there will be a shopping display to showcase jewelry and products created by student entrepreneurs.

“We’re looking at fashion for Media and Journalism students because it’s a conversation industry. It’s an industry about relationships,” McMahan said. “We use fashion to express ourselves. It's a multi-trillion dollar industry. It touches nearly every other industry that’s out there in the world.”

Sophomore Ann Rogers works with Workroom and Coulture magazine and raved about helping with the production of the FashionMash show.

“They’re really accepting of every different idea,” Rogers said. “There’s no limit to what you can contribute.”

arts@dailytarheel.com

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