Creative Teens' Club

Christian Sadler, of Barrington, sent his mother out to a warehouse store to get hundreds of Kit-Kats, Hershey bars and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups so he could harvest the wrappers. Sadler glued the red, orange and brown papers into a pastiche for the bustier on an original fashion design, which he calls “a cross between Willy Wonka and the Moulin Rouge.”

For the skirt, he gathered heavy-duty trash bags and sprayed them silver.

Sadler’s dress, one of several garments made by teenagers from recycled materials, will come to life on the runway at the Warwick Mall on Saturday in a “trashy fashion” show.

The event will cap an eight-week course in innovative design taught by Elana Carello, a veteran of the garment industry who runs a year-round program for youth through Project-Fashion-Works at the Artists’ Exchange at Rolfe Square in Cranston.

Project Fashion Works is “a safe place for us all to be outsiders,” Carello said.

“This is the most fun I have. I would rather spend time with these kids” than do anything else, said Carello, a former designer at Bill Blass and Adrienne Vittadini, who for the last dozen years has had her own knitwear line for specialty women’s apparel stores.

Most of the students found Carello when she was teaching fashion classes to teenagers in the continuing education division of the Rhode Island School of Design and followed her to the Artists’ Exchange.

Sadler, 15 and a freshman at The Wheeler School, “is naturally talented beyond his years,” said Carello. He began designing clothing at 13.

Christian Sadler’s mother, Jeannie, found Carello by word of mouth.

“My mom found her online,” said 15-year-old Bryce Davidson, of East Falmouth, Mass. “I’ve always been interested in fashion since I was little.”

The students value Carello’s expertise.

Amanda Manickas, 14, of Lincoln, said Carello is “good inspiration.”

“She knows the industry. She gives you good advice, and she helps you a lot,” said Manickas as she worked on an arrangement of little pink and red plastic hearts that gave her the color scheme for her dress.

Rachel Seigel, of South Kingstown, a senior at School One in Providence, agreed.

Seigel wrapped a mannequin with an endless strip of polyester belting — the kind of tough weave that could be used for straps on a duffel bag.

“When you buy fabric, you have to play with it,” she said.

That’s something she learned from Carello, a 1984 graduate of RISD.

“I’m not much of an artist,” Seigel said. But Carello has made her realize that “I have some really good ideas.”

Carello has taken Seigel under her wing to a greater degree than most of her students.

Last fall, at the start of Seigel’s senior year at School One, her parents and younger siblings moved to Florida.

Seigel, 18, chose to stay in Rhode Island to complete her last year of high school. She says she rents a room from her grandmother and meets expenses by working as a waitress and other part-time jobs.

Carello has helped Seigel with college and financial financial-aid applications.

The “trashy fashion” class is similar to college-level courses in innovative fashion, which are a staple of any apparel design program, Carello said.

She said she structures her classes so that teenagers have a realistic idea of what they will be asked to do in art school –— and in the garment industry.

For example, everyone had to make clothes that fit a real person. As she has done for past teen fashion courses, Carello has invited a garment industry professional to judge the students’ work.

At 1 p.m. on Saturday, the judge will be Lorraine Howes, the retired longtime chair of apparel design at RISD.

To gather materials, Carello took her students to Recycling for Rhode Island Education in the Elmwood section of Providence, a nonprofit organization which redirects clean cast-offs donated by industry to educators and community organizations.

For those eligible to shop there, the cost of carrying things away is just 30 cents a pound.

Lyza Baum, 15 and a student at Cranston High School East, scored some pleated gold ribbon that came off big award buttons –— trim for the bodice of her dress of spring flowers.

Seigel found the belting to create a dress of black and white drama. She layered the belting with glue to look like pleated fabric.

Bryce Davidson came away with some strips of mylar, silver ribbons with lines of black and gold running through them. He fashioned them into a tote bag that made Carello’s eyes pop.

“Did you get any school work done this week?” Carello quipped one Saturday morning.

Design is a “process,” Carello says. A finished work may not look anything like the original idea, but the best result might never be reached without all the detours.

By Gina Macris
Journal Staff Writer, Projo.com gmacris@projo.com