A recycling company is giving these high school fashion students get a second chance to show off their wearable art projects after they got snowed out

WOODBRIDGE — Students at Colgan High School‘s Fashion Careers Class were looking forward to showing off some of their more avant-garde work made from newspapers, paperclips, and tape.

“I made a two-piece dress with mostly newspaper and Velcro for the backstrap,” said Madisyn Harrison-Dawson, 17, a senior at Colgan High School located near Woodbridge.

“I put a whole bunch of grocery bags to make it have a layered effect, and then I added recycled CDs on top of the trash bags to try to create a little shiny design effect,” said Jaylen Davidson, 17, a senior who lives in Woodbridge.

“I made a skirt, with, like, paperclip clasps to put it on, and then made wings to go in back of the shirt,” said Grace Harrison, 15, who lives near Manassas.

After working for weeks on a wearable art project, where the fashion is more abstract than practical, 12 students were going to strut their stuff at a special competition at the Center for Arts at the Candy Factory in Manassas on January 6.

The day before, however, was a snow day, and that meant these students couldn’t access the school building to get their projects to display them at the show.

Students from every high school in Prince William County were participating in the show. For these students, their spirits were crushed when they were not able to in the show off their artwork.

“It took 10 classes to make the skirt, and two classes to make the wings,” said Harrison.

“I’ve never done anything like this before. It just would’ve been a good experience,” said Harrison-Dawson.

“I was looking forward to it because if I worked really hard on something, and if I work really hard on something I like to show it off,” said Harrison.

This week, when Amercian Recycling in Manassas learned that these students created wearable art using recycled materials — something that company specializes in — it wanted to give the Colgan students a second chance at showing off their work.

So the company on Friday will hold a special event: American’s Next Top Recycle Designer — a competition and reception. The event will feature a runway show, a meet and greet, and the first place winner will receive a Professional Photography Session at TriVision Creative Studios.

The event will take place at American Recycling Center, 10220 Residency Road in Manassas from 6 to 8 p.m.

The new show means that more students from the high school will have a chance to participate because they’ve had more time to work on their projects.

“I adjusted top [of her dress] because I didn’t notice until the day we came back [from the snow day] that the top kinda overlapped the skirt, which I didn’t want to happen. So it gave me the ability to cut that down,” said Harrison-Dawson.

The lesson learned in all of this: students said that next time if there’s a hint of snow, they’ll be sure to take home their projects to work on them there.