As the Sudbury Chapter of Crohn's and Colitis Canada, our team came up with an interesting fundraising idea in 2022: a toilet paper fashion show called the Gutsy Runway! Basically, designers make toilet paper dresses and fundraise. Then their dress is in a runway that people can buy tickets to attend. All of the money goes to Crohn's and Colitis Canada! This is such a cool fundraiser because Crohn's and colitis are diseases that can involve frequent washroom use so toilet paper fits the theme. Also, the runway is about being brave and getting up there in front of people to raise awareness and support for Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. I myself have designed a dress and modelled it all three years that we have held our runway. There has definitely been a lot of learning along the way! Having ulcerative colitis, designing and modelling my own dress was all about represting the Crohns and colitis community in every way that I could! See my past three dresses below along with the methods that I used to make them.
2022 - Ruffles:
I had no idea what I was doing for this first dress since I have no dress-making experience and toilet paper is difficult to work with. This dress was basically just one big experiment! I did a lot of papier maché work with the toilet paper and I wanted ruffles so I folded lot of individual pieces of toilet paper to make ruffles for the skirt part. Hot glue was definitely my best friend for this dress! The over the shoulder shawl-like piece was actually supposed to be worn as a traditional shawl but was too short and some girls backstage suggested that I just put it over my shoulder and it ended up being a hit! One problem that I encountered was the chest of the dress starting to tear backstage before I even modelled the dress.
See photos of all of the dresses here!
2023 - Medieval Inspired:
I decided to go with a different method of toilet paper dress making. The winner of the first runway showed me how she attached long sheets of toilet paper together to make a sort of fabric. She sewed hers with a sewing machine but I am only confident with my hand sewing methods so I just used my good old friend hot glue! I used the "fabric" making method to make two separate pieces, top and skirt, which looked like a full dress when combined. I made it in two pieces to lessen the weight of the skirt pulling on the top, hoping that this would prevent it from tearing. I wanted long bell sleeves inspired by Medieval dresses but decided to just have the sleeves flow behind me, sort of like a cape, instead. It still looked Medieval inspired and I made a sort of headband veil that was Medieval inspired as well. I wanted to make pom poms for this dress so I made some poofy ones and used them to decorate part of the dress. The most fun part of it was the accessory! I made two large poofy pompoms and attached them to each other using a large braid that I made from rope which was toilet paper twisted using a drill. This toilet paper rope would be the future inspiration for my third dress. People thought that my accessory of a big braid with pompoms on either end looked sort of like a mace which again fit in with the Medieval inspiration and which I thought was hilarious! This dress ended up tearing on the sides of the chest underneath the armpits but the tearing happened after the show while I was still wearing the dress and moving around a lot.
See photos of all of the dresses here!
2024 - 1920s Flapper Inspired:
This is my favourite dress so far! I love the 1920s so I wanted to create a dress inspired by this brilliant decade! After making some toilet paper rope the previous year, I decided to go all out with it and hand weave it in two panels which I then attached with woven sides. I did this using a makeshift loom that I put together from a long tote lid and pegged knitting looms duct taped to each end. It required a lot of rope to weave the entire thing and I used hot glue once again when needed. For my accessories, I made a toilet paper "feather" boa by making a really long braid from toilet paper rope and then glueing short individual pieces of the rope to it. I also made a hat by creating a sort of papier maché bowl using a large floppy hat as a mould and then decorated it. To complete my look, I wore a short bob style wig and some red lipstick. This particular dress held up really well and I am very proud of it!
See photos of all of the dresses here!
Cheers,
Kaylie
