navi mumbai a lampshade made of plastic spoons and mannequins dressed in newspapers straws and discarded pieces of fabric these were some of the creative products put up by budding fashion designers at an event junk juxtaposed organized as part of the national institute of fashion technology nift fashion olympiad at the khargharbased centre on thursday with the motto being rethink reduce recycle refashion students from various fashion designing institutes across mumbai experimented with a variety of trash such as cartons cans newspaper cloth pieces rags and plastic waste as a part of the great indian litterbug initiative toi has partnered with nift for junk juxtaposed a part of nift fashion olympiad to encourage students to make installations out of junk the aim is to ensure that students are educated in the importance of sustainability through innovation and creativity vidhi vohera a participant from nifts churchgate centre said we opted for the theme duality wherein we are showcasing womens wear with two shades of indian and western wear on the mannequin we have used newspapers straws plastic bags computer packaging material and fabric pieces discarded by tailors our mannequin is wearing a skirt of jute bags that were discarded in the apmc market said vikram pamu a student of sasmira institute in worli salonee pathak a student of nift kharghar said for our design we collected used plastic spoons from a marriage hall to make a lampshade and toys for children another team member amandeep kaur said the lampshade will resemble an indigo macaw a brazilian parrot the aim is to spread awareness about the bird found in the amazon as they are being killed for the colourful feathers kharghar nifts director nilima rani singh said the theme of using trash for fashion designing was meant to prove that even waste material can be used in a creative manner and it is not necessary to use expensive fabric and ornaments dr reena aggarwal assistant professor at nift kharghar said a total of 50 students from six colleges participated in the competition two teams from pearl fashion academy and one from nift mumbai were declared winners in three categories of installation home dcor and fashion apparel in the statelevel competition held on thursday they have qualified for the nationallevel round to be held on february 18 and 19