When Olympic rowing champion Imogen Grant walks down the red carpet at Sports Personality of the Year on Tuesday, she will be wearing a special dress.
It is the result of a unique project which enabled Grant to combine her passions for sustainability with high fashion.
The 28-year old, who was named BBC Green Sports Awards Athlete of the Year, donated her old sports kits to the London College of Fashion so they could be upcycled into a dress she will wear at the awards.
“I think it’s an amazing project, and I really hope it sends a message,” said Grant, who won gold in Paris alongside Emily Craig in the women’s lightweight double sculls.
“As athletes we get given lots of kit and so much of it gets wasted. As soon as a sponsor changes, a whole new set comes in.
“I hope this shows there’s another life it can have. The way we make kit at the moment is just not sustainable.”
It took two months to create the dress, with maker Aishvarya Verma facing several technical challenges.
“We had to work with lots of different fabrics that weren’t manufactured for an evening dress,” she said.
“But I would say the hardest part was taking the pieces apart because we did not want to waste anything.”
Six items of kit have been used in the final design – each with a story to tell – and it took Verma seven days to unpick the stitching of just one of them.
“The front section is the kit I wore when I won the gold medal in Paris,” said Grant. “There’s kit that I raced in and trained in when I was a newbie on the GB team.
“I’ve set world-best times wearing some of it, and they’ve even used part of the jacket I wore for the opening ceremony at the Tokyo Olympics.
“Back in October, when I handed over a big bag of kit I had no idea how they were going to transform it – but they’ve been worked into a red-carpet look.”
Verma said: “We wanted to blend her memories into one dress.”
