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From book lover to ball gowns, a North Allegheny freshman was a winner with her unique literary-themed dress at the Runway RePurposed fashion show, a benefit of The Salvation Army of Western Pennsylvania Division. Student designers in the Pittsburgh area were to “create a look out of an item destined for the garbage and given a second chance” for the event held May 22 at the Salvation Army’s Pittsburgh Temple Worship and Service Center in Mt. Lebanon, according to Elizabeth Gallager, who chairs family and consumer sciences at North Allegheny.

“This could include unconventional materials like paper and plastics, or discarded clothing that was upcycled into a new design,” Gallagher said. Students of the sewing and design class at North Allegheny Intermediate and the fashion art and merchandising class at the North Allegheny High School, as well as several other independent student designers in the district, participated. Sidney Rice, a North Allegheny freshman sponsored by UPMC Passavant Hospital, won a $1,000 scholarship in the high school division for a ball gown made mostly from book pages.



“My love for reading greatly inspired this dress. I decided to use ‘The Selection Series,’ which is the book that introduced me to my love of ball gowns. I fell in love with this series as well as the dresses within it,” Rice said in the dress description for the event.

The floor-length ball gown had a corset and layered-book page fans aligned to create a full skirt, com.

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