Recycling: the Couture Way from Gary Harvey at LA Fashion Week

published Oct 16, 2007
Recycling the Couture Way from Gary Harvey at LA Fashion Week
London based "multimedia" designer Gary Harvey showed his striking line of eco-couture dresses at Fashion Week LA on Saturday.

Each dress is unique and hand made.

Harvey's concept is to "re-contextualize " clothing for haute couture.

"I take something iconic like jeans, which have a certain context, and take that out of the everyday to make it into a ball gown", says Harvey.

"Newspapers I make into a dress that moves like a jellyfish or an anemone."

Harvey had worked as a design director or creative director for Top Shop, Top Man, French Connection, Dockers and Levis before bowing his first collection during London Fashion Week to rave reviews.

Harvey's pieces are recycled materials.

Jeans made into an elegant dress. Sweatshirts, with arms flowing like tentacles, form a skirt.

A clingy strapless gown made of camouflage fabric.

"Clean or Die" and other slogan t-shirts as an organic hemp dress.

A dress made of trenchcoats, in shades of tan and taupe, sewn together to create a flounce with good motion.

A gown made of plastic bags suggests Marie Antoinette, not Courtney Love.

Many of Harvey's designs feature flattering corset tops, often with a sexy laced bare gap all the way down the back... and on the bottom large romantic flowing skirts.