Welcome to Refashion 2026 — a celebration of creativity, community, and conscious fashion. Tonight, local designers showcase one-of-a-kind garments made from repurposed clothing and sustainably sourced materials, reimagining what fashion can be.
A highlight of the evening is the Styled by Wasties category, where community-inspired looks have been brought to life using curated second-hand finds by the Wastebusters team.
SECTION 1
Local community members share their creative visions through moodboards full of colour, texture, and style inspiration. Our talented Wastebusters team then bring these ideas to life, sourcing second-hand treasures from the shop to create stunning, one-of-a-kind outfits. The result is unique, sustainable fashion – straight from imagination to the Refashion runway.
SECTION 2
Tonight, local sustainable designers showcase what’s possible when creativity meets conscious fashion. These designers prove that style and sustainability go hand in hand. By valuing resources, using sustainable materials, and embracing slow fashion, they are helping to shape a more thoughtful and responsible fashion industry.
Explore the designers featured on the Refashion runway below.
Nikolai revived his heritage fashion brand after discovering an original vintage jacket, blending timeless design with modern style. Exploring New Zealand’s fashion past has inspired him to honour craftsmanship, quality, and longevity in every piece. His work shows how heritage design can thrive today, offering lessons in sustainability, durability, and creating garments people truly cherish – a celebration of classic style reimagined.
Web: www.oscareide.nz
Facebook: Oscar Eide NZ
Insta: @oscareidenz
Amelia grew up in a creative, hands-on family in the US, where she developed a love for fibre arts including sewing, knitting, and weaving. Now based locally, she continues that passion by creating handmade garments using mostly second-hand and repurposed materials, often sourced from op shops and pre-loved pieces.
Insta: @athomeinhawea
During quarantine, Maxene discovered a love for fibre arts, including crochet, knitting, and embroidery, and has focused on using mostly second-hand yarn for her projects. Through her creations, she hopes to share her passion for craftsmanship and inspire others to appreciate the beauty and sustainability of slow fashion.
Working with second-hand fabrics and finishes is always a priority for Anna. She loves being inspired by what she can find rather than searching for specifics. The garments she creates are made from second-hand fabrics she has collected over many years of sewing, giving new life to materials and celebrating sustainable creativity.
Leni Rosser, owner of ReThreads, is passionate about reducing clothing waste. Concerned by fast fashion’s huge environmental impact, she upcycles old garments using sustainable trims to create unique, stylish pieces. Through her work, Leni transforms discarded clothing into new looks, helping to reduce textile waste and promote more conscious, sustainable fashion.
Robyn Agnew calls her work “fun with jackets.” She started by sourcing second-hand suit jackets and transforming them with stitching, slashing, and added embellishments. Each piece becomes a playful, eye-catching jacket, perfect for a special occasion or anyone who wants to stand out.
This short-sleeve blouse is made from second-hand fabric from a Refabricate sale, using a Style pattern sourced from an op shop. Lightweight and loose-fitting, it’s perfect for warm summer days. The waistcoat, crafted from reclaimed lining and patterns with Fabricate buttons and buckle, can be styled formally or casually, with an adjustable back belt for a fitted look.
Luna Fadden’s design is created using curtains in a range of different colours, transformed into a new garment through creative reuse. She loves the way events like this bring people together while giving fabrics and clothing a second life. For Luna, refashioning is about finding inspiration in others’ ideas and reducing waste by making the most of existing natural fibres.
Anna Liggins creates one-of-a-kind, handmade garments using carefully sourced second-hand materials. Working across sewing, knitting, and crochet, her pieces give new life to existing textiles, transforming them into something entirely unique.
Eweburn Creek produces 100% New Zealand-grown knitwear, with wool from a family farm just 10 minutes from Ranfurly in the Maniototo. They create timeless, sustainable pieces using natural fibres, prioritising traceability and supporting local industry. From farm to finished garment, every step of their process keeps production close to home.
Web: www.eweburncreek.com
Facebook: Eweburn Creek
Insta: @eweburncreek
Hayley Flintoft, also known as Funky Stitch Witch, discovered sewing through costume parties, creating outfits for her family. Over time, her designs have grown more elaborate, using mainly second-hand fabrics sourced from Wastebusters. Hayley’s work celebrates creativity and sustainability, transforming discarded materials into striking, one-of-a-kind pieces that showcase the possibilities of refashioning.
SECTION 3
Precious Collaborative explores the true value of clothing — craftsmanship, quality, and the real cost behind each piece. Using a unique model of True Price and Gift Price, it invites people to rethink what they pay and why. The response has been powerful, with many choosing to pay more than required. More than fashion, Precious is a social project – showing that when value is understood, communities will step up to support it.
Web: www.preciouscollaborative.nz
Facebook: Precious Collaborative
Insta: @preciouscollaborative
Using op shop finds and donated textiles — from curtains to lace — Lou transforms discarded materials into entirely new creations. Her work is playful, experimental, and unapologetically expressive, with no two pieces ever the same. Each garment is a wearable work of art, reflecting her belief that creativity has no limits. A self-described factory of ideas, Lou finds bold and beautiful ways to reimagine the unwanted.
Web: Lou Stichbury website
Facebook: Stichbury & Diddy-stich
Insta: @stichbury_and_diddy_stich
Morgan creates her garments from wool sourced from Lizette’s pet sheep, who live on a farm in Canterbury. She spins the wool herself, dyes it, and then knits it into finished pieces, often learning new patterns from YouTube. Morgan loves the feel of the wool and enjoys the whole creative process-turning fleece into garments she can proudly make and sell for pocket money.
Drawing on the striking landscapes of the Maniototo, Lohi Linen designs modern natural-fibre garments made to endure. Their approach champions slow fashion, quality craftsmanship, and longevity over trend. Through student-led fashion shows, they empower young designers to transform recycled materials into wearable runway pieces.
Web: www.lohilinen.com
Facebook: Lohi Linen
Insta: @lohilinen
This bold, gold dress was inspired by the proposed Bendigo gold mine and reflects on true value—found not in extracting wealth, but in people, stories, landscapes, and community. Made entirely from second-hand and reclaimed materials sourced locally, it transforms discarded fabrics into a striking statement celebrating inner worth and the treasures already present around and within us.
Sienna Dunlop has recently developed a passion for creating and sewing sustainable clothing. She enjoys designing pieces in her own personal style, using repurposed materials such as pre-loved garments and fabrics to bring her ideas to life.
Abby Beaton upcycles clothes sourced from Wasties into new garments, focusing on texture, flow, and wearable style. Abby’s designs are funky, practical, and fun, bringing creativity and sustainability together in every piece she makes.
Insta: @abby_beaton
Email: ajm.beaton@gmail.com
Mackenzie has been collecting second-hand fabrics and materials from Wastebusters and op shops for the past few years, from which she designs and creates her own garments. She loves the uniqueness of reused fabrics and would love to develop a sustainable clothing business at some point in the near future. She keeps all my scraps for future projects to minimise waste, and she is always thinking of creative ways to include sustainability in her designs.
Jessie Healy is a local sewer who doesn’t sell her products but gives workshops at the Fabricate in the Wanaka workshop, teaching the community how to make items like this themselves. All that is required is basic sewing skills, which you can also learn at the workshop. Just using it as a plug for the workshop, not for me, because I’m not a commercial designer.
Eva Hosie’s slow fashion label, Rabosi Design, creates timeless, handcrafted garments from her Dunback studio in Otago. Inspired by the South Island’s landscapes, she works with natural fibres like linen and cotton, using sustainable practices and offcuts for unique embroidery. Committed to ethical fashion, Eva minimises waste in every step, from design to packaging, ensuring style, durability, and sustainability.
Web: www.rabosi.co.nz
Facebook: Rabosi Design
Insta: @rabosi_design
Trish Stanley has been dressmaking since she was a teenager, with a love for creating something from nothing and repurposing items deemed no longer useful. Her Bridgerton-inspired dress began as a duvet cover, rescued and reconstructed into an elegant evening gown. City Classic trousers and a flowing top were made from curtains, while another curtain became a sophisticated blue-and-silver dress that shimmers in evening light.
Mel Roselli has always loved creating. During lockdown, she taught herself to sew and completely fell in love with it. As she learned more about the impact of fast fashion, she began exploring how to create differently, using what already exists and giving fabrics a second life. Inspired by timeless brands like Chanel and Saint Laurent, Mel reinterprets elegance in a conscious, sustainable way, showing that fashion can be beautiful, creative, and responsible.
Maria Ituarte presents “The Many Lives of Weaving Thrums,” a piece inspired by the undulating patterns of sand and sea foam along the ever-changing shoreline. Made entirely from unique recycled materials, this garment transforms textile remnants into a striking, one-of-a-kind creation that celebrates movement, texture, and the beauty of reuse.
From the lighting and music crew to wardrobe and makeup, every person plays a crucial role in bringing Refashion to life.
Behind the scenes, our crew keeps things running smoothly, our front-of-house team welcomes a sold-out crowd, and our photographers capture the magic, while models step onto the runway with confidence and support for one another.
To everyone who lends a hand – thank you. We’re also grateful for the support from QLDC’s Zero Waste District Programme, helping make this event and Slow Fashion Month possible.
Your passion and support make Refashion 2026 unforgettable.
Wastebusters Resourceful Communities events are proudly supported by Queenstown Lakes District Council’s Zero Waste District Programme.
This year our amazing Wastebusters whānau has been busy keeping everything we can out of landfill and supporting resourcefulness in our community while also working on bringing our dream of Wastebusters 2.0 into reality.
We were humbled and absolutely stoked to take home the Wānaka Chamber of Commerce Business Awards Supreme Business Award, along with the Community Contribution and Business Sustainability awards. This success was a powerful recognition of the dedicated mahi of our entire team, giving us huge confidence for the ambitious journey ahead.
We welcomed Aviette Musin on a fixed-term contract as our new Programme Manager for Wastebusters 2.0. Her expertise provided the dedicated, focused capacity needed to accelerate progress on this strategic goal.
Funding was secured through Queenstown Lakes Community Composting Project for the Compost Collect pilot, a joint venture with our neighbours Wānaka Greenwaste that will turn commercial food scraps into valuable compost, launching in 2026. We also intensified our focus on Construction and Demolition (C&D) materials, trialling diversion methodology and securing initial partnerships to divert waste from landfill. With our current site so space-constrained, we are extremely limited in the C&D materials which can be accepted for reuse, but this work will lay the groundwork for future diversion on a bigger site.
We made a compelling case to the Council for the necessary land expansion for Wastebusters 2.0 and prepared for the MfE Waste Minimisation Fund application process to support our expansion plans.
A continued focus for us this year has been on strengthening the Wastebusters whānau and ensuring we are equipped not just for the daily challenges, but for future growth. We continued to be a Living Wage employer, reflecting our commitment to the well-being and value of our staff. Feedback from the team via staff survey results highlighted strong morale and resilience within our workplace culture with 89% saying they enjoy working at Wastebusters and 93% feeling cared for by their manager.
The district’s rapid growth brings challenges as well as opportunities, particularly the Ballantyne Road/Riverbank Road roadworks which demanded flexibility and good humour from our team and customers throughout 2024. Despite the road cones, ongoing community support ensured our Reuse Shop continued to be a first choice destination for both locals and visitors. Improved donation flows and adding new changing rooms has made the shop operation smoother and more efficient for everyone.
Wastebusters’ partnership with events continues to go from strength to strength: including the trial of a food scraps collection from vendors. And our Recycle team did the huge job of relabeling all our events recycling bins to align with national recycling colours, making it easier for event-goers to know what to do. Wastebusters recycling trucks continue to be a much-loved presence in town servicing our 408 business customers, with the team doing a great job of keeping our aging fleet serviceable, in line with our kaupapa of keeping resources in use for as long as possible.
Our Reduce team has continued to deliver exceptional impact, with more than 11,000 people engaged in person through our education and engagement in the community. The Resourceful Communities programme inspires our community to take action and builds the knowledge and know how to engage in areas like repair, low waste living and textile waste diversion. It is proudly supported by QLDC’s zero waste district’s programme which recognises the impact of community connection for zero waste action.
We were stoked to join Environment Hubs Aotearoa, and we look forward to collaborating with this network and amplifying our collective impact on environmental action and resourcefulness across Aotearoa.
We worked with an impact consultant to implement an evaluation framework and behaviour change model to better plan, deliver and measure our impact, and have begun rolling out our learnings across all our programmes.
It was a busy year in advocacy, starting with participation in QLDC’s Waste Management and Minimisation Plan process. We appreciated QLDC’s approach in bringing Wastebusters and other stakeholders in early in the process, which has resulted in a constructive plan for the next six years. Wastebusters has also made submissions on national and local level, including The Right to Repair Bill, the Container Return Scheme and the publicly notified resource consent for McDonald’s in Wānaka.
Ultimately, this year has been about delivering impact while building the foundations for a much larger and even more impactful operation, securing Wastebusters’ future for our community. The heart of our work remains resource recovery and community engagement, and we enter the next 25 years of zero waste leadership with great confidence, welcome community support and an unwavering focus.
Gina Dempster
General Manager
November 2025
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