Inaugural Ball Flaunts Fashion Made of Trash

Stuck on what to wear to that upcoming Washington gala? How about a shower-curtain-and-aluminum-can cocktail dress? Or a canvas-scrap-and-rusty-nail gown? The actual “trashion,” created by recycling advocate Nancy Judd, will be showcased at Saturday’s Green Inaugural Ball, the Wall Street Journal reports. The fashionista even has a men’s coat, sized for chief honoree Barack Obama, made of door hangers.

Judd—who has no formal training and takes ideas from paper dolls—doesn’t sell the trashy fashion. After all, you can’t even sit down in the stiffly lacquered designs. But after years of chiding people to recycle, Judd has found a way to champion the cause without being “gloom-and-doom,” she says, adding, “I like the idea of making aluminum elegant, or rusty nails sexy.” (More inauguration stories.)