Photo by Ann KrajewskiEmma Cleveland, Claire Brown, Penelope Hobbs and Leah Saari with the dress forms that support the dresses they're creating, the basis of SewGreen's “Make Your Own Prom Dress” program. Hobbs and and fellow Cornell freshman Carly Neumann started the classes after discovering not only their mutual interest, but several others' as well.

An unusual “town-gown” partnership has resulted in three Ithaca teenagers making original prom dresses from (almost) all reused materials.

Cornell freshmen Penelope Hobbs and Carly Neumann have volunteered at SewGreen, a sustainable sewing program in downtown Ithaca, for a series of Friday night classes in which they showed the teens how to create their own dresses from scratch.

When asked what inspired her to offer the class, Hobbs, 18, says, “My own personal experience motivated me. I made my own prom dress when I was in high school and I remember hearing over and over from my fellow students how they would have loved to make their own outfit but had no clue as to how to even begin such a project. I decided that I wanted to make that wish happen.”

Neumann, 19, agrees. “Penelope and I were on a bus earlier this year and we reminisced about what it was like in high school,” she says. “I had been a volunteer at SewGreen and after coming up with a plan, Penelope and I, with our combined experience in sewing for much of our lives and even making gowns for our friends, approached Wendy (Skinner, SewGreen’s coordinator), who has been incredibly supportive and helped us to get the program off the ground.”

After volunteering to help with some children’s classes at SewGreen, they offered to teach “Make Your Own Prom Gown.” They agreed to follow SewGreen’s philosophy of reuse and selfreliance.

And almost two months of diligent work later, the creations of 15- year-old Emma Cleveland, 17-yearold Claire Brown and 14-year-old Leah Saari were nearly complete last week, fueling the girls’ ambitions and echoing the enthusiasm of all the participants.

“I’ve been participating in SewGreen since I was nine,” Cleveland says. “My friend Julia John and I competed in the Eco- Fashion Contest together and later on we plan to collaborate on designing a show together.”

Taking their inspiration from SewGreen’s stash of donated materials, the teens drew pictures and then designed the dresses. They created their own patterns, worked to get a perfect fit by first sewing pieces from cotton muslin, and are now in the process of completing the construction of the gowns.

Hobbs, Neumann and Skinner agree that their greatest satisfaction has been watching the girls get so excited by the prospect of creating a unique item that they can proudly wear.

Nearly nothing has been purchased new to make the dresses, which have been sewn with refurbished vintage sewing machines in the SewGreen classroom, located in downtown Ithaca.

“These older restored machines are wonderful,” says Hobbs. “Because they have all metal parts, they are very strong and the needles can sink into a lot of thick fabrics that many newer machines can’t. This has been a real plus for us because we’re working with a whole variety of fabrics including cotton, brocades and satins.”

The intersection of glamour and sustainability has been very successful, Skinner says. “Much is owed to the creative skills of Carly and Penelope, who invented the class and have led it on their own. The teens arrived with beginning level skills. Now they are sewing at an advanced level beyond that of many experienced sewing enthusiasts,” she adds.

“No one else will have a dress that looks like these,” says Skinner. “They are in every way designer originals.”

A showing of the finished dresses will be scheduled later this spring.

Hobbs also points out that after summer vacation, she and Neumann will conduct a corset class with SewGreen. “We’re still in the planning stage, but we look forward to it and of course we would like to continue with helping students create their own prom dresses as long as there are interested participants,” she says. SewGreen operates a not-for-profit sewing school and a reuse store. The classroom is in the Women's Community Building and the store is across the street in the DeWitt Mall at the corner of North Cayuga and West Seneca streets.

For more information visit www.sewgreen.org or call 227-7611.

TAGGED WITH: DIY, dresses, reused materials, SewGreen, sustainability, youth