Making a green fashion statement

2:55pm Sunday 30th March 2008

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IT WAS more green than Gucci as youngsters strolled the catwalk at a Southampton school fashion show this week. More than 750 students from Regents Park Community College in Shirley took part in the Enrichment Day' as part of a business and recycling initiative.

The girls were split into their six school houses to form 32 different teams to compete against each other in designing, creating and promoting their catwalk outfits.

Superheroes, the services and prom dresses were just some of the themes undertaken by the teams in coming up with designs as wacky as some of those seen at major fashion shows.

The only brief given to the pupils before the day was that they would need to bring in recycled goods. Further materials were then donated by John Lewis and Red Funnel to add to the stockpile from which the pupils created their designs.

Eight judges from businesses across Hampshire, linked to the Southampton and Fareham Chamber of Commerce attended two fashion shows to select winners and runners- up in each.

The school is one of just 50 schools across the country to be chosen for the pilot Young Chamber Scheme.

The initiative by the Chamber of Commerce is an attempt to bring business closer to schools and to give youngsters more of an idea of the world of work.

The Young Chamber programme began in September at the start of the academic year and features a number of days for children to meet people from the world of work.

Prizes were given to the top three teams including bags for life from WestQuay shopping centre in keeping with the green theme.

Laura Rogers is the assistant curriculum leader at the school. She said: "It was a very creative day. They really had to come up with a lot of idea generation.

"The biggest part of the day that was that the designs had to be made solely from recycled goods, thinking about what recycled goods were and what they could bring in to use."