The Glory of Trash Fashion

The Trash Fashion Show in Santa Fe is part of a delightful celebration of one my favorite definitions of life: Take what’s in front of us and create beauty.  And as we know, what’s in front of us can get pretty wacky strange, mundane, ordinary, even what we consider ugly.  Turning whatever into our best sense of beauty takes that special kind of affection the world can never have too much of.  

While the Trash Fashion event itself lasts only an hour, it is the crown jewel of plastic that marks the popular Recycle Santa Fe Art Festival featuring presenters by the dozen this November weekend for the 24th consecutive year.  

As you might expect of craftspeople whose middle name is Recycle, the festival’s artistic appeal is all over the map.  But the beautiful energy of self-expression is everywhere enthusiastically and at times outrageously honored.  

Trash Fashion, for instance, is a runway extravaganza of wearable creations made and modeled by people ranging in age from, say, 10 on up.  While many of the outfits are sensationally imaginative in their use of discarded materials (imagine a skirt made of 10 thousand paper receipts, each folded into an origami crane), all inspire admiration for the energy and focus required for their invention.

And perhaps most notable is the atmosphere of goodwill that permeates the entire gathering of presenters and audience.  I for one sported a fat Howdy-Doody grin the two hours I was there looking around.

The Recycle Santa Fe Art Festival is one of countless venues that invigorate the spirit of Santa Fe—some of them relatively permanent such as galleries and museums; others are annual events like this one—and draw to themselves from within the permanent population of Santa Fe and greater New Mexico, as well as from across the nation and beyond, an audience of folks whose hearts are yearning to be touched by beauty in some unexpected (and at times almost unbelievable) form.

No wonder that my experience of living here enjoys such similarity with my 30 years on a Vermont mountainside.  I’m not sure what the two places have in common.  Surely nowhere in Vermont (and maybe nowhere else in the nation) is the splendor of art as robustly celebrated as it is in Santa Fe.  Maybe it’s the power of the land and who it attracts and nurtures.  But whatever the reasons, a broad-reaching kindheartedness in both places is conspicuous. 

I’m of an age where my appreciation of beauty includes no desire for acquisition.  Show me a Picasso for ten bucks and I’ll say no thanks.  What I treasure, however, is being in the presence of the vibration of hearts aspiring to love ever-more deeply.  I’m blessed by the reminder of what that means to me as I turn 80 this week.