BART's old paper tickets transformed into fashionable dress designs

OAKLAND, Calif. - Inside this room at the Oakland School for the Arts, a transformation is taking place, as students turn thousands of old BART paper tickets into inspired fashion creations. 

One student told KTVU her group designed a dress meant to look like a tutu from the Swan Lake ballet using the BART cards as feathers. Another group created a robot-like design from the 1960s and still another student took on a look inspired by high fashion.

The project was developed after a discovery by BART employees. 

Chief communications officer Alicia Trost says, "I got a phone call from someone in a warehouse saying there was boxes and boxes of paper tickets, and they are going to shred them, and they just wanted to make sure I was OK with that. And right away I was like, do not shred those paper tickets. Leave them for me. I am going to do something with them."

Turns out there were about 150,000 tickets, more than enough to create – "Project Doneway: a farewell to BART paper tickets."  

It is a competition between four schools; the Oakland School of the Arts, Academy of Art University, College of San Francisco and San Francisco State.  

The fashion students will create designs that will then be showcased on the runway. 

The idea was inspired by the work of Oakland designer Sean Porter, who back in 2015 went viral after making a dress from 192 BART tickets that he had saved over the course of three years.

After being presented with the challenge in 2024, the Oakland School of the Arts was one of the first schools to say yes. 

On the first day of school, the 20 high school students in this fashion design class were presented with thousands and thousands of old phased-out BART paper tickets. 

The school’s fashion chair, Stephanie Verrieres, says, "We had all these boxes of cards, and we opened it up on the first day of school, and I was like, here's your first material you're working with this year. And they're like, ‘Oh my gosh.’"

Since then, they have put in countless hours of work and imagination. 

One student says her group took A’s themed cards for their design. Another used rectangle cards in a spiral. Still others took a retro approach going back to the '50s when BART was founded. 

One student looked to the Victorian era for her design.

It was challenging to figure out ways to make the vision reality. 

The cards are stiff and it's tough to manipulate the sewing machine.  It can be tedious and there were very few rules to guide the way. 

The school says this is a perfect opportunity for the public tuition-free charter school to strut its stuff. 

This is a one-of-a-kind partnership.  

Oakland School for the Arts Executive Director Mike Oz says, "Obviously BART is central to what we do in that without having a BART station across the street, we wouldn't be able to serve such a wide community. Our kids come from all over the place, right? So, 75% of our kids roughly, are coming from Oakland. The other 25% are coming from Antioch, Pittsburgh, and, you know, everywhere else in the Bay Area. So being able to work with BART was exciting."

And while it is not easy, it is the process that brings the magic. Trust the process and the BART runway will be ready.  

Project Doneway will be held on Sept. 14 at the Rockridge BART Station. The event is free and you can register here.