From discarded fabrics, designer creates beautiful upcycled dresses

Deepkamal Kaur

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, August 12

Designer boxes of sweets distributed during weddings are not thrown in bins in her house. Depending on their shape, eco-crusader Harpreet Kaur uses these as flower vases or cases to store artificial jewellery. Plastic pet bottles at her place also do not go in scrap. Instead these are collected, stuffed with waste wrappers and converted as eco-bricks to be used during construction work.

Valuable waste

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I do not dump clothes. In fact, I even go to boutiques and collect waste. I mix and match the stuff, make some designer cuts and patches and sew these together to make a new designer dress.  Harpreet Kaur, Professor

Take a peep into the house of the head of the Design Department of Kanya Maha Vidyalaya at Surya Enclave here and one can spot several items which have been upcycled. A range of cushion covers, wall hangings, paintings and table tops aesthetically displayed in the drawing room of her house have been created out of upcycling technique for the designing of which she has even earned 30 patents.

Not just that, her wardrobe, which seemingly has all designer clothes, are actually made from cuttings of old sarees of her mother or her own 20-year-old collection. “I do not dump any clothes. I keep preserving these. In fact, I even go to the boutiques and collect cloth wastages from these. I mix and match all the stuff, make some designer cuts and patches and sew them together to make a new designer dress out of these”, she showed her collection of coord sets, designer coats and jackets and anarkali suits.

The KMV HoD has even been propagating upcycling by making videos of the technique through her Facebook page. “I think this habit of storing scrap items came in me right from my childhood. I used to save even my pencil sharpenings and groundnut peels for creating some designs out of these,” she said.

Harpreet also has a collection of designer key chains, pouches and cloth bags. “Every upcycled item has to be neatly sewn to be made usable. The stitches should be fine. The inner layering has to be of a clean cloth, for which I usually use discarded men’s shirts. For bags taken to vegetable markets, I have made compartments so that the vegetables and fruits can be kept in a segregated way.”