A few weeks ago, the Rubbish to Runway event celebrated its 13th year. As expected, it was another successful weekend of sold-out shows. Bixby International was once again a proud sponsor of the event which encourages designers young and old to repurpose, reuse, and recreate materials that would otherwise be thrown away. The event took place on June 16th and 17th and included design materials varying from bread packaging tabs, mismatched socks, construction materials, and torn camping tents to used water bottles, cans, can tabs, used tissue paper, and more!
This year, Bixby had a garment on display in the show in addition to its sponsorship. The unique, ballgown style, two-piece dress was made by a Bixby employee. All the materials used, aside from the hoops in the skirt and pearl embellishments, came from Bixby’s own manufacturing floor. This included scrap and unused fabrics from past R&D trials and testing, extruded biopolymers from the start of a lab trial run, and scrap materials from dental aligner material. Often when an extrusion trial is run it can take some time for the material to reach its correct thickness and temperature. This means that the very beginning and end of the material run is usually deemed scrap. For this Rubbish to Runway project, Bixby’s ADE Team was an amazing contributor by pulling the scrap materials and anything that “seemed interesting” before it was discarded. The result was a garment titled “Never Fully Dressed” as a tip of the hat to the skirt’s main material, dental aligner film, and the well-known song from Annie, “Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile”. The dress, which ended up being a fan-favorite, was modeled by an Amesbury 2023 graduate, Molly Tonks, who wowed the audience with her beautiful smile and display of the garment.
The dress will be on display for a short time at Bixby International for employees and visitors to view up close. Bixby is already looking forward to next year’s show and utilizing more of its manufacturing “trash” to bring to the runway for this unique and fun community event.
As an additional note, thank you to the photographers, Jackie Deorocki and Lani Shumway, for sending along their photos for this page.
.jpg "Rubbish to Runway Bixby Dress-White top with ballgown style skirt covered in clear plastic sequins and flowers")
.jpg "Rubbish to Runway Bixby Dress-Close up of skirt covered in clear plastic sequins and flowers from Bixby materials")
.jpg "Rubbish to Runway Bixby Dress-White top with ballgown style skirt covered in clear plastic sequins and flowers")
.jpg "Rubbish to Runway Bixby Dress-Back image of the white/nude top with ballgown style skirt covered in clear plastic sequins/flowers & airy white fabric")
.jpg "Rubbish to Runway Bixby Dress-White top with ballgown style skirt covered in clear plastic sequins and flowers")
.jpg "Rubbish to Runway Bixby Dress-White top with ballgown style skirt covered in clear plastic sequins and flowers")
.jpg "Rubbish to Runway Bixby Dress-White top with ballgown style skirt covered in clear plastic sequins and flowers")
.jpg "Rubbish to Runway 2023 - photo of event finale with multiple participants on stage displaying the upcycled/recycled garments")