Recycled runway

Before you begin

• Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Additional help to carry out your risk assessment, including examples can be found here. Don’t forget to make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
• Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help if you’re short on helpers.

Setting up the activity

1. You may want to lay out the runway and chairs before starting the session.
2. A few weeks before this session, you could ask volunteers, young leaders and young people to bring in their clean, dry recycling to collect it to use for your outfits. You could also ask people to bring items with them on their night.
3. Local craft shops and supermarkets may have some clean, dry recycling or unwanted items they could give you.
4. Set up some craft tables and lay the items out, so everyone can see the materials before using them. Set up some scissors, paper, pencils, colouring pencils, sticky tape, paper clips, safety pins and glue, too.

Who’s Stella McCartney?

1. Gather everyone in a circle.
2. Ask if anyone has heard of Stella McCartney and who she is or what she does. Choose a few people to answer if anyone has put their hand up.
3. Explain to the group that Stella McCartney’s a fashion designer. She’s a firm supporter of animal rights, environmentalism, and is particularly known for her use of vegetarian and animal-free alternatives in her work.
4. Read out Stella’s story.

Design the outfits

1. Everyone should gather in a circle and explain that today everyone is going to become a fashion designer, just like Stella McCartney.
2. Tell everyone that they’re going to design and make an outfit or accessory out of clean, dry recycling, spare fabric and craft materials.
3. Explain that at the end they’re going to make a runway and people can show off the item they’ve made, but only if they feel happy and comfortable to do so.
4. People could make a hat, scarf, t-shirt, trousers, shoes, socks, dress, skirt, bag or anything else they can think of.
5. Remind everyone that any item they make will need to go on top of the clothes they are currently wearing for the runway.
6. Everyone should get a piece of paper, pencil and colouring pencils or felt tips. They then need to design their outfit, looking at the materials available.

Make the outfits

1. When they’re ready, people can start to make the outfit. They may need to use sticky tape, a needle and thread, glue, or safety pins to help hold bits together.
2. If you need to make it easier and quicker, people could just use bin bags, clean recycling and newspapers to create a simple new outfit, rather than using craft materials and fabrics.
3. An adult volunteer could use a glue gun or sewing machine to help people secure items together. They could have a table set up for people to come to, and get the item glued or sewn.
4. Everyone should finish putting their outfit together and, if you’ve used glue or paints, leave it to dry. You may want to run this over two sessions to give everyone time to finish their item.
5. Once finished, everyone should give their outfit or item a name to be announced on the runway.

Running the runway

1. Mark out a space running the length of the meeting space, around 2m wide, using masking tape, string or chalk.
2. Put chairs either side of the lines for people to sit on. You could invite parents and carers in to watch. Alternatively, you can split everyone into two groups and get them to take it in turns. The group not walking down the runway would be watching, before switching over.
3. Once everyone’s finished making their outfits, one group should sit down, and the other should gather in a line at the other end of the runway. They could use a room to wait in, depending on your meeting place layout, ensuring ratios and Yellow Card is adhered to.
4. You may want to put on some music and introduce each person, as well as their item name.
5. People could walk down the runway in pairs if they’re feeling a little nervous.
6. People should walk to down the runway to the end. They may want to add a pose at the end and then walk back up the runway.
7. Anyone watching could clap and cheer as people walk down. You could assign some people to be paparazzi, providing any photo permissions are in place. Make sure people are being supportive of one another the entire time.
8. Once people have walked down the runway, switch groups and get them to walk the runway until everyone who’s wanted to have shown off their item.
9. At the end, people can either keep or recycle their outfits.