Junk Kouture
Junk Kouture is a global, sustainability-focused fashion competition that challenges students to design and create high-fashion outfits using 100% recycled materials. It’s a celebration of creativity, innovation, and environmental responsibility — and our Fairgreen students have fully embraced the challenge!
On this page, you’ll find everything related to Fairgreen’s exciting Junk Kouture journey: from behind-the-scenes looks at students’ incredible designs, to the inspiring stories, ideas, and values driving their projects. Explore their work in progress, creative breakthroughs, and proud achievements as they transform discarded materials into runway-ready masterpieces.
Sustainability and innovation are at the heart of Fairgreen—and Junk Kouture brings both to life in the most artistic and meaningful way.
May, 2025
Dear Fairgreen Community,
Our names are Veronica and Diana, and we are two of Fairgreen's fashion designers, participating in this year's Junk Kouture competition, the world's largest youth sustainable fashion show in the world. This is our story — a voyage of creativity, purpose and passion, transforming waste into wearable art to share a message about real issues that should be heard.
This year, eight of us designers made it to the finish line, submitting our designs to Junk Kouture, and it has been a big learning curve for all of us. We all went into it with expectations of planning, sketching and being able to make our designs come to life. However, it was a lot more in-depth than what we thought, but we were all up for the challenge. This design competition has impacted us all greatly, helping us to gain perspective, creativity and the ability to work together to create fashion for a purpose. All of the designs were carefully thought out, each carrying a different meaning and message. From raising awareness about immigrants, Motor Neuron disease, animals in captivity and overcoming the challenges that life throws at you, these creations have all been crafted with purpose. If this competition has taught us anything, it is that we can all work together to become more aware of these challenges that are constantly revolving around the world. Going forward, we have all agreed that fashion can be something that is not only pretty to look at, but also something which can be a chance for change and impact. We've loved sharing our designs and messages with others, and really hope they resonate as deeply with the viewers as they did with us.
Our Junk Kouture teams put in a ton of effort creating our designs that could then be submitted to Junk Kouture. Including creating a video explaining the process of making the dress, the message and our takeaways, and choosing a song that would be played as our model walked the runway. After all this, finally came the time to press that final submit button and the relief that came over us was one that we had never felt before. A chapter of our lives finished, no more staying everyday after school and waking up early (and or staying up late), meanwhile a new chapter opened. After waiting anxiously for a few weeks, we fortunately found out that all four of our design groups had made it to the Dubai City Final. And while we are now waiting to see whether one of our groups makes it to the World Final next year, we are still all so proud of the achievements and learnings that we have made along the way. And no matter what happens, we are still so happy with all the stories and messages that were shared through these innovative and emerging designs.
About a month after submitting our designs for the Dubai City Final, we were asked to host a fashion show as part of the entertainment for the Gala Dinner at this year’s Global Sustainability Summit at the SEE Institute to help them celebrate sustainable art and fashion. We all jumped towards this opportunity as it was a chance for us to present our hard work, creativity and passion in front of an audience. What an experience it was! All four of our design teams, plus the team who represented Fairgreen at the Junk Kouture World Final this year, took over the catwalk. Rehearsing for the event did get stressful at times, but for the most part it was really exciting, as this was everyone's first time hosting a big event like this and strutting down the catwalk. By the night of the fashion show, we had already rehearsed everything and were as ready as we were going to be. Getting ready together was one of the best parts as we were all able to hangout, help each other with makeup and the dresses. We also may or may not have had a mini karaoke and shared a few giggles before going out. Set in the IMERSEE Hall, the show transported the audience into the heart of each design, with stunning accompanying visuals projected across the walls, ceiling, and floor — transforming the space into a living canvas as each model took to the catwalk. Being in the room, with all of the projections and the models felt as if it wasn’t real. We were all able to watch our hard work and dedication being presented to a room full of people, who we hope felt inspired and moved after. Veronica and Diana were hosting the fashion show, and they were dedicated to opening, closing and announcing everyone down the runway with great enthusiasm. And both of us, who hosted the event, had so much fun introducing the models down the runway with enthusiasm. We’ve loved sharing our designs with others and hope that their messages resonate as deeply with viewers as they did with us.
If you would like to follow us along on our journey to see if one of our teams make it to next year’s Junk Kouture World Final, checkout the Dubai City Final which will be streamed live next Wednesday, May 14 at 4:00 pm on the Junk Kouture Youtube channel. Wish us luck!
