FRAMINGHAM  — A senior fashion design major at Framingham State University has taken sustainable fashion to the next level with a creative upcycling project. 

Rather than putting on a self-serving fashion show with “environmentally friendly” clothing, Gabriela Mendez-Acevedo decided to attribute sustainability not to the aesthetic, but to human need.

“I think of sustainability from the perspective of growing up poor. I had to wear my brother’s clothing and try to piece my outfits together,” Mendez-Acevedo said in a Dec. 1 release from FSU. “I want people to understand sustainability from a different point of view. Sustainability wasn’t an option for people like me.”

This semester, Mendez-Acevedo did a community upcycling project where she asked those affiliated with FSU to donate clothing, which she then gave to a local homeless shelter.

“We sourced these clothes directly from the FSU community and got them into the hands of people who really need them,” Mendez-Acevedo said. “Clothing makes such a difference. Think about how often people look down on the homeless simply for how they are dressed.”

Mendez-Acevedo, a peer tutor and the student Co-Chair for the FSU Council on Diversity and Inclusion, graduates this winter and has already lined up a position at PUMA as an Apprentice for Apparel Development in the Run/Train Department. Her goals are to work with the department to develop a plus size collection, a unisex collection, and an adaptive clothing collection. She is also launching a podcast focused on topics such as mental health and self-care.

“I do want to continue getting experience in the industry so I can eventually teach other students like me how to make it in the fashion industry and educate them on the disparities Black people and people of color face in the industry,” she says.

Mendez-Acevedo gave a presentation on her project to the FSU community on Tuesday, Dec. 14, in the university’s Whittemore Library.