Story by Elliott Kennedy
Photos by Emily Fraysse
They loom over the small studio space, peering down at anyone who passes through the door. Beneath them stand tables covered with tools, trash, and design sketches. Twinkling lights compliment the glaring rays of sun that shine through the adjacent windowpane and reflect off the room’s white walls. Standing with flawless posture in a perfect line, their elevated loft space would offer a perfect view of the happily chaotic Portland studio if only they had eyes. Or heads.
Dressed in garments made exclusively of garbage, four white, plastic mannequins flaunt some of the most inventive and intricate creations made by designers at the Junk to Funk Trashion Collective.
The two mannequins on the left, closest to the window, display a couple of the group’s most famous pieces. One of the outfits is a green, blue, and yellow strapless top matched with a full, clear plastic skirt that resembles a cluster of bath bubbles. Called the “Vitamin Water Plant Bottle Dress,” the garment is made of packing tape, glow in the dark paint, and more than 200 used Vitamin Water bottles, including the flavors Glow, Rhythm, Squeezed, and Revitalize. It is one of the only Junk to Funk dresses that employs electronics, using green lights to illuminate the plastic skirt.
The other garment, titled “Chastity Blinds,” touts a full, almost spherical skirt made of silver, blue, and white blinds. Layered to form an elaborate pattern of horizontal and vertical stripes, the skirt brings to mind a 3D stereogram: stare at it long enough and the genius behind the design will reveal itself. The bodice has a crosshatched pattern, with a structured blue-and-white striped bust that conjures up images of a pop star’s concert costume.
“Lady Gaga is a natural fit for our style, but if we could design for anyone, I’d have to say Drew Barrymore because she’s so darn cute,” says Lindsey Newkirk, official “chief instigator” and founder of Junk to Funk. “Or Leonardo DiCaprio. We don’t make a lot of men’s clothing, but we’d make something custom for him.”
While the Portland-based group has yet to hire a celebrity spokesperson, Junk to Funk is becoming better known with each new project. Driven by a desire to highlight America’s consumer waste problem, Newkirk turned her love of nature into a Mecca for designers, artists, and environmentalists. “I’m a recycling fanatic, but I can’t do it all by myself,” she says. “This is another way to do more.”
From fashion shows and exhibitions to community outreach programs and installations, Junk to Funk has drastically evolved, expanded, and exploded in popularity since Newkirk organized the first Trashion fashion show in 2006 (it was then called “The Recycled Fashion Show Contest”). At the time, she had no intention of repeating the event, let alone going on to create an entire business centered around the idea of recycle-based haute couture.
“The idea of making clothes from trash seemed like a good Portland fit—it’s creative, fashionable, sustainable, and green,” she says, “but I honestly thought this would be a one-time gig.”
The response from artists and designers during that first fashion show shocked Newkirk. She received more than 45 garment entries from designers in Oregon, California, New Mexico, and New York. The overwhelmingly positive feedback from participants and viewers inspired Newkirk to organize two more fashion shows in the following years.
“When I think back to that first show, it absolutely blows my mind,” she says. “I would never have thought that it would turn out this way.”
But when the economy took a turn for the worse, the annual show booked for 2009 lost nearly all of its sponsors. As a result, Newkirk decided to modify the business model of the fledgling eco-fashion group.
“I had always thought about a job in event production and sustainability, but I could never find anything like that,” she says. “So I kind of just made one up by myself. This gave me a reason to go for it.”
With an advisory board of past Trashion participants, a handful of designers, and several as-needed administrative assistants and interns, Newkirk turned the Recycled Fashion Show Contest into a year-round organization called the Junk to Funk Trashion Collective.
The group still produces and commissions garments, but no longer hosts an annual fashion show. Instead, Junk to Funk manages youth and afterschool programs, which teach children fun, creative ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle. Newkirk and her team also organize public outreach programs and Trashion for businesses, which highlight the ecological and economical benefits of recycling. Best known are the group’s eco-entertainment events, including installations exhibited in downtown Portland, at the city’s 2010 Fashion Week, and in the Portland International Airport.
“With Portlanders, it’s still wowing to see these garments, but in the back of their minds they’re thinking, ‘Gosh, that is so Portland,’” Newkirk says. “That’s why I really like doing Trashion for businesses and conferences because we have a library of audiences who are usually from out of town so they’re experiencing this artwork for the first time.”
In the years since Junk to Funk was officially established, the size of Newkirk’s team has fluctuated depending on the flow of business. While additional designers are sometimes commissioned to create a garment for a particular event, only three people work closely with all aspects of the organization: Newkirk and two designers, Jen LaMastra and Traci Price. “They really helped me steer this ship,” Newkirk says.
The designers’ use of salvaged goods from garbage cans and recycled bins have led to works of art, she adds.
“Sometimes I think about what other materials we could use here, but I’m already amazed by what the designers can do with what they have,” Newkirk says. “They’ve already done way more than I could have ever imagined.”
The unanimous favorite among all three women is “Chastity Blinds,” which LaMastra took more than six months to create. Newkirk estimates that the amount of time and human labor put into constructing each Junk to Funk outfit would equal a hefty price tag if the garments were for sale. Intricate dresses like “Chastity Blinds” would cost between $3,000 and $7,000, Newkirk says. But in terms of materials, Price and LaMastra agree that the cost is usually no more than $10.
“My building manager had called me up to offer these blinds and I had thought, ‘What the hell am I going to do with those?’” LaMastra recalls about creating “Chastity Blinds.” “Then I couldn’t stop thinking about those damn blinds! One day I had a dream about them. I could see what I wanted to make and I knew I had to have them. It was two years later, but the building manager still had them.”
In addition to blinds, Price and LaMastra have used bicycle tires, crayons, old curtains, soda and beer tabs, lights, and broken records.
“We work with some pretty gross stuff sometimes, maybe because we really only lightly rinse stuff off,” Price says. “I’ve gotten all kinds of residue on my hands from the materials especially when I was melting records together. It smelled so bad that I started to wonder if I was doing something worse by sending all those toxins into the atmosphere.”
Still, working with trash has its advantages.
“We never have to worry about messing something up,” Price says. “This isn’t $100 per yard exquisite silk that we’re working with. You never think, ‘Shoot, I just ruined an old coffee cup.’”
LaMastra adds, “Plus, you can’t use a band saw or a rivet gun with sewing. There’s something so satisfying about cutting into a bicycle tire and revving up my drill. You just can’t get that working with traditional materials.”
In the coming months, LaMastra and Price will put their tools, trash, and time into an installation of the top three consumer waste products: plastic grocery bags, plastic water bottles, and paper coffee cups.
“We took the bottles out of recycling bins in the hallway outside the studio, and we get the coffee cups from my boyfriend,” LaMastra says. “We capitalize on their addictions.”
Addictions they hope to curtail by sharing Junk to Funk fashions with the public. All three women want their work to inspire consumers to be more mindful of what they purchase and so reduce wastefulness.
“We’re not shaking our fingers at people and saying, ‘You’re bad and wrong,’” Newkirk says. “We’re trying to create happiness and show people what they really value in life. It’s not money or stuff—it’s family, friends, and the art of nature.”

Gallery • 4 Photos

Rubbish Meets Runway