Runway Revival returned for a third year of the unique fashion show Thursday evening at the Carleton College Weitz Center for Creativity. Artists and models from the area showed off their strange and elegant outfits made of recycled materials in the only fundraiser for the CAC of the year.
Anika Rychner, the senior director of the CAC, said Tuesday that the event was a success in her eyes, even if she doesn’t yet have the final number of the amount raised.
“Our artists made incredibly unique and beautiful pieces and our models and emcees brought it all to life,” she said. “Overall, Runway Revival 2025 was a success. With it only being our third year, the word is definitely getting out that this is an event you don’t want to miss. And we are so grateful to all the sponsors and auction/raffle donors for all the support.”
Erica Staab-Absher, the executive director of the HOPE Center, attended the event for the first time this year, adding how excited she was for the unique showcase of artistic talent.
“I’m also really happy to finally get to attend because Anika is always talking about how much fun it is, but I’m usually out of town for it,” she said. “I’ve already seen some really artsy-looking people just walking around here.”
Helen Forsythe, a worker-owner with Curbside Compost Cooperative, ran the compost organization’s booth in the Zero Waste Showcase.
“I just think this event is such a cool and creative melding of different things, like it’s a fundraiser for the CAC, it’s this celebration of reducing your waste and reusing things,” she said. “I just think it’s a cool combination of goals. We’ve tabled here, I think, every year that the event has taken place. But we are just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to zero waste.”
Curbside Compost offers weekly pickup of organic materials for composting in Faribault, Northfield and Dundas. The service is offered on a sliding scale, or using a “pay what you can” model.
Forsythe said, especially in Northfield, there’s a good spread of people paying less than the standard rate and people paying more, allowing cost to not be a barrier for those interested.
“The reason that [composting] matters is when those compostable materials go into the landfill, they try to break down, and they don’t have access to enough oxygen because they’re mixed in with the plastic, they’re mixed in with all the other materials,” she said. “So they break down anaerobically, without oxygen, and that process releases methane, which is one of the contributing greenhouse gasses to climate change.”
