Kibble Education & Care Centre

During the first lockdown we wanted to give our pupils an opportunity to engage in a multi-disciplinary project where they could work together virtually and within their house bubbles to learn new skills, get creative, and gain enjoyment during a very difficult time. There was the added focus on sustainability and considering our wider environment. Conventional materials became difficult to source due to lockdown consumer shortages, and it was a logical decision to add ‘recycling’ as an objective.

The Kibble Virtual Fashion Show culminated in a 75-minute event which was a mixture of live and pre-recorded footage that streamed across Kibble’s residential houses, celebrating all our pupils’ achievements of learning throughout lockdown.

We planned the fashion show around four themes: Junk 2 Funk, Lockdown Loungewear, Reconstructed and Kibble Comic-Con.

‘Junk 2 Funk’ focused on repurposing conventional, everyday waste items into fun, silly and enjoyable art pieces. Dresses fashioned out of supermarket carrier bags, astro-turf hats, a wedding dress with a corset of bottle tops, a newspaper kilt, with matching sporran, a flattened drink can dress were some of the firm favourites, but the pièce de resistance was the full Scottish highland dress replicated in Aldi bags!

“Reconstructed’ called on our participants to learn new skills in sewing and clothing-upcycling. We were generously donated clothing by the sustainable fashion company RE:Mode who also offered online classes in clothing upcycling. A new fashion concept was created by one pupil, a ‘throwzie’ created by combining a fleece throw with the hood and arms of an old hoodie. Mixing off-cuts of fabric together to create new clothing items, using applique techniques to rejuvenate old clothing became popular with many young people.

These themes allowed our young people to see vision and potential in unwanted items which would ordinarily be led to landfill and subsequently started dialogue about sustainability and recycling.

We are proud and inspired by what our young people achieved and as we plan future endeavours, sustainability is a perfect focus for positive change and if we are ever in any doubt that we can do it, we just need to reflect on our time throughout lockdown and COVID-19.

Our message of hope for COP26 is: “With collaboration, creativity and laughter, anything is possible.”