Texas Fashion Designer Turns Iced Coffee Cups into Haute Couture

This Latina created a one-of-a-kind dress called La Sirena after the mythical mermaid in the Starbucks logo.

While many in the fashion industry are talking about designing for a circular economy, Adrienne Yunger, with a namesake brand in San Antonio, Texas, is walking the talk with eco-chic apparel. With more than 20 years of designing experience under her belt, this latina made a dress from coffee cups and straws that showed waste materials can have a place in haute couture.

As a top 20 finalist for the Austin Fashion Week Bernina Challenge, the Lone Star designer made a one-of-a-kind dress called La Sirena after the mythical mermaid in the Starbucks logo. She relied on the local Starbucks coffee shop and her favorite pick-me-up for her high fashion moment. After sipping the last drop of her iced beverage, Adrienne held on to the 24 Oz venti cups and straws to create an eye-popping number that scored high on style and recyclability.

Krosskeys Communications caught up with the designer at her studio. “I think we are at a crossroads in the fashion industry, where many of us are looking to change the way we do business and design clothes from used materials to reduce waste,” she said. In the process, an industry with a market value of some $370 billion in the United States is beginning to rethink design.

For the Bernina Fashion Week challenge, Adrienne claimed the dress itself was heavy on labor, but the result was an artfully blended masterpiece. In total, she spent about 160 hours cutting and sewing the delicate and detailed dress that held hand-crafted sequins. First, she cleaned each venti cup and then hand painted them with a sea colored palette using non-toxic acrylics by Martha Stewart.

With the bottom of each cup cut out, she used the sides to form sheets. Then using an industrial hole punch, typically used for patterns, she pressed the machine onto the sheets to generate small round pieces. Nearly 50 of these pieces were collected at a time into a makeshift cylindrical device. Then she drilled holes in the center of each piece to make varied sizes of sequins.

Generally, sequins are industrially made from petroleum-based plastic and their shine comes from chemical or metallic coatings. These are not biodegradable and are drawn from a raw material source that is finite. Adrienne found an ingenious way to work around the problem, using available materials to reduce further harm to our environment.

She meticulously hand sewed the sequins onto a used Starbucks apron to detail the bodice of the dress (yes, she was a Starbucks barista early in her career) and onto La Sirena, sketched on a shower curtain liner for the skirt. Then she recycled green straws for the beading and floral elements to present a whimsically floaty gown that fits a Size 6 woman, about 5 feet 9 inches tall.

To bring her enthralling vision to life, Adrienne blended two of her greatest joys: a morning cup of joe with an ingenious fashion sensibility. Her fine craftsmanship has been recognized across the state of Texas and her collections featured both on national and international markets. She has been a recipient of the Austin Fashion Week’s Fund, San Antonio’s Fashion Week Womenswear Designer of the Year, the Dallas Observer Artopia Featured Designer, and the Best Contemporary Designer for Mercedes Benz, El Paso Fashion Week. Last October, Miss Texas Teen USA 2022 wore a Texas-themed gown for competition that was exclusively designed by Adrienne.

Given that fashion industry is one of the key contributors of plastic microfibers entering our oceans, it is encouraging that designers like Adrienne Yunger are reinventing fashion iby reusing clothes, repurposing materials, and reducing waste. For more inspiration, visit adrienneyunger.com.

Krosskeys Communications LLC is a woman-and-minority-owned small business in the United States that provides digital marketing, content writing, and public and media relations to raise awareness of environmentally-friendly products and services that inspire action to protect our planet. For more information, go to www.kross-keys.com.