Junk Kouture, a sustainable fashion initiative that challenges students aged 13 to 18 to design unique clothes using only recycled materials, has launched in the UK after a successful run in Ireland with over 100,000 participants.

Participants will be judged by a panel that includes renowned fashion veteran and Central Saint Martins Course Director Fabio Piras, as well as RuPaul's Drag Race judge Michelle Visage, in addition to a team of technical experts.

Junk Kouture is a year-round, free-to-enter program for second-year students that pushes them to design, construct, and model wearable haute couture made entirely of waste.

The program will also be expanded to include students in New York, Milan, Paris, and Abu Dhabi, with the ultimate goal of qualifying for a berth at the Junk Kouture World Final in September 2022.

By the end of 2023, the goal is to have launched Junk Kouture in 13 cities, with a 10-year goal of influencing the lives of one billion young people around the world by 2032.

Fabio Piras said that as an educator whose purpose is to support and guide fashion designers studying for the Master’s degree at Central Saint Martins, commitment to artistic expression, vision, and practice fascinates him. Junk Kouture is a fantastic example of this kind of involvement, advocating the idea that while creativity should be strong and uncompromising, it can also be responsible and caring. He is thrilled to be a part of the Junk Kouture competition, and he can't wait to see the worlds these up-and-coming young artists create.

Junk Kouture has been creating an engaged, active, and inspiring community of young people in Ireland for over a decade, all while altering the way young people think about waste materials and encouraging how they may be recycled and regenerated for a creative vision.

Junk Kouture is also collaborating with environmental campaigners Kids Against Plastic to raise awareness of the movement and the importance of young people as future changemakers in the environmental movement, inspiring them to make a difference while also becoming “circular engineers” in their own right.