Re-worked counterfeit items on sale at Clothes Show

[dutchman]

Fashion design students in Coventry are re-working counterfeit clothing to be showcased for a charity at next month's Clothes Show.

The items include T-shirts seized by Trading Standards which the university students are turning into dresses.

Homeless charity Coventry Cyrenians suggested the idea after learning of a similar scheme in Wales. Its staff have been involved with making garments.

Almost 40 items are available at the event at the NEC from 3 to 8 December.

Angela Armstrong, from the School of Art and Design, said the students and the charity were hoping to set up a shop to keep selling the reworked items.


Student Claire Walker (pictured) said it was exciting because "things that were made for the wrong reasons" were going on sale and helping a charity.

About 150 items were given to the students and logos and labels have been removed, Trading Standards said.

"Wherever we can we try to be as inventive as possible rather than use landfill," spokesman Andrew Tandy said.

"We've had DVDs turned into dog bowls - wherever possible we try to get things re-used."

He said he was happy to help a local charity and urged people to be ever more vigilant about buying genuine goods in the run up to Christmas.

To date this year, he said, Coventry Trading Standards had espied around 6,000 individual items costing an estimated £31,000.

Goods included clothing, replica shirts, mobile phone covers and X-Box games.

[pollyanna]

It's a brilliant idea - so much better to re-use than destroy.