Olympic medallist wears recycled red-carpet dress designed by LCF graduate

The BBC Green Sport Awards celebrates athletes who use their platform to promote sustainability in the world of sports. The dress worn by Imogen Grant, Athlete of the Year 2024, was made from old rowing kit she had worn in past competitions.

To commission the red-carpet look, the BBC Sports team turned to the MA Innovative Fashion Production course at LCF, which is specifically aimed at investigating new ways of making products.

Recent graduate Aishvarya Verma was chosen to create the dress because of her experience working with athletic fabrics, including performance wear for athletes in various Asian and international championships. This was her first time making an evening gown.

The creative process started by facing the biggest constraint: the limited colour palette of the kit, which was not red-carpet friendly. Another challenge was avoiding logos. The goal was to combine five different types of fabric without making it look like a patchwork. To avoid wasting any materials, the design team used digital design tools.

‘This is where my course education helped a lot – digitally realising what we can do best with the kits,’ says Aishvarya.

Aishvarya believes this project can serve as an example of what is possible, replicated on a  larger scale. ‘If three people can do this, the industry can definitely think bigger on the same lines.’

Course leader Ella Sharp-Mitchell agrees that the dress could set a great example for the industry as the design could be easily replicated using old unitards of any kind, shape, or colour. ‘If brands put money behind things like dissolvable thread technology, young aspiring athletes could access proper training kits more easily. They need to consider manufacturing as a really thrilling field – some of the most exciting work and innovation is happening in product development, not necessarily design.’

Aishvarya says she is proud to have contributed to making this innovation come to life. ‘Going beyond the potential and discovering something that you already know but giving it a new shape is something very personal to me.’

While this project might seem ambitious, Ella says this is what MA Innovative Fashion Production course students do every day. ‘All the things that design students think of, our students make work from a manufacturing perspective,’ she says. ‘Every year I think I can’t be stretched any more, but then our students come up with something new once again.’