Upcycling with CUDECA

Fashion is part of our everyday life; what to wear and keeping up with the latest trends. But increasingly the world is concerned of the growing environmental impact of the Fashion industry. The new designer generation must address this challenge and explore ways in which Fashion can be made more sustainable.

One eco-friendly opportunity is to upcycle second-hand clothing and materials. The 2nd Year Fashion Design & Development students at Marbella Design Academy are currently working on one such exciting upcycling project.

The Academy has partnered with the Costa Del Sol based CUDECA foundation to creatively reuse second-hand clothing and fabrics that have been donated in support of this charity.

CUDECA is a charitable organisation that "cares for, alleviates, accompanies and offers specialized palliative care to cancer patients living in the province of Málaga", and has many charity shops operated by volunteers that sell 2nd hand goods donated by locals.

CUDECA Warehouse. 01/02/2022

CUDECA very kindly opened its central warehouse doors to Marbella Design Academy students and to hunt through its stock of damaged clothes, in order to use some of them in our upcycling project.

CUDECA opens its doors to the warehouse - 01/02/2022

Find out more about CUDECA at  www.cudeca.org

Project Presentation at the Marbella Design Academy Fashion Atelier 18/02/2022

After the original project presentation, the students have worked through an all-garment development project, and now it is a flurry of activity in the Fashion atelier to create the final pieces.

Over the next few days, each of our 2nd-year fashion students will design and create a unique upcycled outfit that will then be donated back to the CUDECA foundation, to be sold-on in one of its many charity shops along the coast.

2 great causes supported in one joint effort - CUDECA and the environment!

Our students in the Fashion Atelier, in the early stage of the project.  18/02/2022

From project development to experimentation and garment creation. 22/02/2022

After the early concept creation and development, it`s now all hands in the Fashion atelier.

The project is not finished yet but it is exciting to see the creations start to come to life and the new form that the garments are taking.  

Fashion Atelier at Marbella Design Academy. 22/02/2022

Upcycling done! 06/04/2022

We are proud to showcase a selection of the upcycled garments created for CUDECA by our 2nd-year Fashion Design students, Ranvá, Daniela, Ryan and Fayth.

Our students worked hard from the initial research based on the clothes from CUDECA to be recycled, through the design development and to the final garment construction. This was done 100% by themselves in Marbella Design Academy's fashion atelier.

Before we deliver them to the CUDECA shops where they will be put up for sale in support of the charity, our fashion designers wanted to proudly showcase their designs in our school photoshoot room.

Well done to all of them!

Project by Ranvá.

project by Daniela.

Project by Ryan.

Project by Faiyh.

Stay tuned to find out in which CUDECA shop you can find and buy these outfits!

Ready to sell! 09/06/2022

Yesterday morning our Fashion Design students visited the CUDECA vintage shop in the Málaga centre where the UpCycling collection recently created by our 2nd year students is now for sale.

Visiting the shop in Málaga old town and in the beautiful Summer sunshine was lovely, and it was great to hear that there had already been a good deal of interest in the garments with some customers wanting to know the prices. This was very motivating feedback for our fashion design students.

We would like to say a big thank you to the CUDECA staff for their warm welcome, and the way they have prepared the showcase of this collection. It was absolutely beautiful.

The attention to detail that was given not only to the collection display, but in the shop decoration and displays, is fantastic, and we warmly recommend a visit to this shop.

Easy to find, it is just by the Thyssen Museum.

Links of interest:

You can find more about what our Fashion Design students did in Málaga today by keeping an eye on our stories, or visit our fashion design Instagram profile https://www.instagram.com/fashion_designschool/

Find out more about CUDECA at www.cudeca.org/en/ and feel free to visit CUDECA online shop: https://joanbycudeca.org

Find out more about our Fashion Design department at www.designschool.com/fashion-design/

Marbella Design Academy - Spain -  Founded 1995 - BA (Hons) in Fashion Design & Manufacture - Tuition in English