9NV have been studying the film Cruella in English this term. As Cruella is a story about fashion, and turning rags into riches, 9NV were given the task to create a fantastic outfit using only a rubbish bag, newspaper, and a recyclable shopping bag. Students Luca Fono and Isla Jeffrey give us a first hand account of their group's work.

The students had exactly 30 minutes to make something out of nothing. The models then strutted their stuff on the catwalk, and were judged by Mrs Barr, Ms Hammond, and Miss Shaw. 

Luca Fono:

My group had one of the best designers in town - Morne Du Preez. Our fantastic ideas man was Ahmad Hussaini and I added my touch of fashion flair to it. Saul McCawe modelled for us as he is small enough to use less paper, yet elegant and experienced enough for the catwalk.

Morne had a clear vision from the beginning. We were to make a trashy wedding dress as that is the most formal attire we could think of. That’s when I had an idea to make the dress seem like our model was trapped. A prison of dullness. A wedding dress is so beautiful yet ordinary. 

I added words from a newspaper to read on his front ‘Trapped by society’. This refers to how you must wear a wedding dress on your wedding day. But how come? It’s your wedding after all. That’s what we were going for. Pushing people to make their special day, a special day.

When we’d finished, we had to carefully navigate our model to the catwalk. He did a marvellous walk, even doing a twist, symbolising him breaking free. We ended up getting 3rd and I had a great time.

Isla Jeffrey:

We had to create an outfit inspired by the Cruella movie within the short time of 30 minutes with only a limited amount of resources. This was a struggle and a challenge. We had trash bags, shopping bags, tape, and newspapers. I believe we had to use newspapers and trash bags to influence the idea of Cruella’s unruled fashion of being creative outside the box.

Our group wanted to give the effect of Cruella’s overall fashion sense and style, we also included her innocent side of Estella, by adding a bow to our models hair, for the outfit, we allocated hints of red to remind the viewers of the colours incorporated in Cruella.