Rubbish fashion show: mother in China transforms garbage bags into ‘high fashion’ for daughter’s catwalk at home – video viewed more than 5 million times
- A girl in China is trending online after a video of her environmentally friendly recycled plastic bag dresses in a home fashion parade went viral
- The girl’s mother made the dresses using plastic bags from home that are similar in colour to the outfits her daughter sometimes wears
A young girl in China has trended on social media with her home fashion show wearing dresses her mother made out of recycled plastic bags on the mainland.
The girl’s “environmentally friendly-themed fashion show”, uploaded to short video platform Douyin last week featured more than 10 dresses made by her mother using colourful plastic bags, The Paper reported.
The mother, surnamed Qi, from Shandong province in eastern China, said her daughter likes modelling and has had catwalk training.
“Days ago, an idea popped into my mind that there are many plastic bags at home, the colour of which is similar to those of my daughter’s dresses. Why not hand-make some dresses for her?” Qi said.
She said since her daughter’s kindergarten asked parents to do a lot of handicraft homework with their children together, she was confident in her DIY skills when it came to making clothes.
“I’ve made those stage dresses purely by following my own inspiration,” said Qi. “It is because I have watched many fashion shows performed by children and am familiar with those dresses. Generally speaking, I think making dresses out of plastic bags is quite simple.”
“My daughter is delighted. She told me: ‘Mum, you don’t need to buy me stage dresses in the future. I will just wear plastic bag-made clothes to walk on the runway’.”
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The girl’s video has been viewed 5.5 million times on Douyin, with around 400,000 likes.
“The dresses are more beautiful than those at Paris Fashion Week,” wrote one person.
“The dresses are creative. The little model has got swagger,” another person commented.
But some people questioned whether the clothes are environmentally friendly, with some commenting: “You have wasted so many plastic bags.”
Qi said she had not used many bags and said they can be reused afterwards as well.
“Most of the plastic bags I’ve used can be used again. For some of the clothes, I only stuck the bottom of the bags with double-faced adhesive tape to other bags. They can be taken down easily and be used to hold garbage,” she said.
China has been fighting against plastic waste for the past decade, however, it has made limited progress in reducing the volume of plastic waste due to poor implementation.
In 2008, the state authorities banned shops, supermarkets and wet markets from distributing plastic bags for free.
The government issued a rule in 2020 forbidding shops, supermarkets, wet markets, food-delivery services and exhibition events from using non-degradable plastic bags.
The China Business Newspaper reported that the country produced 81.8 million tonnes of plastic in 2019, including 15.9 million tonnes of plastic film. But only half a million tonnes of plastic products are degradable, the report said.
