Plastic Bag Fashion That Will Blow Your Mind

From jokey high school fashion shows to high-stakes moments on Project Runway, the idea of creating a garment from nothing but garbage bags is one that easily captures the imagination. The internet is teeming with droopy, puffy plastic film creations, but only a few rise to the status of fashions. Here are our favorites, along with recommendations of the best bags in our collection for you to use if you’d like to recreate the look.

Garbage bag prom dress. Featuring a delicately ruched bodice with a sweetheart neckline and asymmetrically layered ballgown skirt,  this creation uses classic black trash bags to stunning effect. From the big volume and defined ruffling of the skirt, we’re willing to bet the designer used low-density garbage bags, probably around 1.5 mil thick,just like these.

Braided cocktail dress: This gorgeous mini dress is made from carefully braided black garbage bags for a gorgeously textured effect. For ease of braiding and twisting with flexibility and strength, we’d guess that high-density black can liners of medium thickness, maybe around 12 microns, like these bags. Photo credit: Travis Geny-Photography for Totally Trashed Fashion  

Drawstring sheath dress: This is the simplest frock on our list, but it’s strangely effective. The contrasting drawstrings really add something special. We’d love to see it recreated with these two-toned Harmonyx bags. Credit: Jeremy Scott  

Couture cape: The talented designer of this runway-ready look actually got her start in virtual design, for Second Life avatars. Bringing her gifts into the real world with the help of trash bags and a blowtorch, the dress was a top entry in a fashion design competition. To hold its integrity against the heat but still give a lightweight, feathery effect, we’d imagine that this garment was made with lighter low-density garbage bags, maybe 1.2 mil thick, like these popular black can liners. Photo credit: Irena "Eshi Otawara" Morris

So there you have it: our best picks for the fictional Garbage Vogue magazine.  The ways that designers can manipulate and transform a humble garbage bag into a work of art never ceases to amaze us. It might not be the most practical use of our products, but we still love it. For more amazing trash fashion, check out our Pinterest board. It always gives us a grin.