Joan Cabarrus puts on a respirator and goggles before shutting the lid of a panini press on the balcony of her Round Rock apartment.
After 45 seconds, she opens it back up and removes a gooey green blob smushed between parchment paper.
It used to be a pickleball.
"I use a panini press specifically for melting plastic," she says, warning that you need to do this in a ventilated area. "It's just enough to flatten it."
Cabarrus has to act quickly to shape the retired pickleball into a flower before it cools off. Then she'll attach the flower to a lampshade she's turning into a hat for the Reuse on the Runway fashion show this weekend.
Austin Creative Reuse came up with the idea for a fashion show about five years ago. Staff at the nonprofit, which sells donated materials and craft supplies, wanted to show off the talent of Austin artists who are making new stuff out of old stuff. They were also concerned about the amount of waste the fashion industry creates.
"It felt like an opportunity to showcase sustainable style and inspire audiences to see different ways that fashion can be made reuse-centric," Jillian Srygley, the artist program coordinator at ACR, said.
Unconventional materials
Austin Creative Reuse's shop in the Windsor Park neighborhood has just about every random thing you can imagine. This place is like a Goodwill, but for crafty people.
Rows of plastic bins are filled with ornaments, napkin rings, doll parts and empty shotgun shells. All of this stuff is donated. There's a bin of small plastic containers with lids — and another of large plastic containers without lids. For $2, you can buy a floating duck.
You wouldn't necessarily think these materials could be turned into clothes.
But around 40 designers will use some of these items for their runway creations. They're not required to use any particular materials, but are encouraged to include things that don't sell well at the shop. It gets a lot of discarded lanyards from conferences — and binders, lots of binders.
"We actually asked designers — and it was totally their choice — if they wanted to try incorporating some of those more challenging materials and quite a few people did," Srygley said. "So we're excited to see [what they come up with]."
Seespriya Jakowlew-Dahlhaus, the communications coordinator for ACR, said there's a range of items used in the fashion shows — everything from bread tags to architectural samples.
"The most iconic piece to me from the last couple of years was a Marie Antoinette-style dress made from lotería tickets," she said. "That was pretty incredible."
Srygley said a designer who worked in healthcare once used vial tops from rattlesnake antivenom to make a cloak. Another designer took strips of magazines and rolled them into beads.
"From far away, you couldn't tell that [the outfit] was made out of magazines," she said. "And then you look closer and it's like, oh my goodness."
Jakowlew-Dahlhaus said a few of the designs are wearable. One participant last year made a couple outfits using denim jeans and jackets.
"Those were definitely styles that you could see people walking around with on the sidewalk," she said.
But other pieces are more art than fashion. After previous shows, a few have been displayed at the Dougherty Arts Center or in local businesses.
"I've also heard of designers breaking down their looks and reusing those materials again in the future," Srygley said. "So we love that our designers are truly inspired by the idea of a circular economy, and we'll make sure that those materials continue to be used in one form or another."
A creative path
Cabarrus is walking two outfits down the runway this year.
One is made up of cracked pickleballs that she's painted neon pink and yellow. The bodice is shaped using silicone placements. To complete the look, she created a purse by fastening two pickleball paddles together.
The second dress is purple, with jigsaw puzzle pieces affixed to the straps in the back. Its skirt is made out of Bubble Wrap with rhinestones glued to it. She attached vinyl records to half of a volleyball to create a hat to go with it.
Cabarrus said she has to be careful not to become a trash collector.
"Everywhere I go, it's automatic: Oh, what is that? Can I use that? Is that worth it to take it home and stuff?" she laughed.
Cabarrus said there's really no planning when she puts together her outfits. The design depends on the materials she finds. She'll walk into Austin Creative Reuse with tunnel vision, looking for particular colors or structures that will fit her ideas.
She's taking time off from her nursing job to focus on her creations and getting them out into the world. She made a dress out of used climbing rope that's on display at the Mesa Rim climbing gym. You can see one of her pickleball creations at Picklr Austin West.
She knows there's not a lot of money doing what she's doing, but hopes with exposure she might get commissions.
"I wanna build something else, like my soul is calling me for a creative path," she said. "It's always been, but now is the time."
Copyright 2026 KUT News