Hundreds of spools of thread with every color imaginable — beryl blue, crushed crimson, gilded gold — line the walls in the fashion lab at Texas Woman’s University on Wednesday afternoon.

DRC/Candace Carlisle

Heather Hancock, a senior in the Texas Woman’s University fashion design program, puts finishing touches on her project Wednesday. Her work will be part of a fashion show tonight at Hubbard Hall.

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Rows of sewing machines, cutting tables and headless mannequins dot the lab as fashion design students make their last-minute fittings before a fashion show today.

But this fashion show is a little different.

Instead of high-end couture, this show is about reusing fashion statements from the past and making them wearable, perhaps even fashionable, again.

Denton County Friends of the Family donated the clothing from its thrift store. The dated apparel likely wouldn’t appeal to the average fashion-conscious female, but in the hands of a skilled craftswoman, the pieces could get a facelift.

Two of the best pieces will be auctioned off at the fashion show tonight. The proceeds will benefit Friends of the Family, a shelter and outreach center for those affected by relationship violence or sexual assault.

After the fashion show, the public will have the opportunity to purchase the other reworked pieces at the

thrift store.

It is all about creating new life in these dated garments, said professor Sherri Dragoo, who teaches fashion design at TWU.

“Garments don’t have to be disposed of,” Dragoo said. “They can kind of have second lives.”

One dress proved especially difficult to reuse: a matronly cocktail dress made of embossed polyester jacquard.

The late 1960s dress most likely would not biodegrade and would “fill up a whole lot of landfills,” she said.

But a determined student who said she had never seen fabric like it in her lifetime brought out a baby-doll dress with an accompanying capelet.

Students were up to the challenge, which didn’t have a lot of rules and relied entirely on the end product. Hannah Schmidt, a fashion design junior, said the project was one in which you “fly by the seat of your pants.”

“You have one thing and cut it apart to make something completely different,” Schmidt said. “This is what I enjoy doing.”

Another student combined two cocktail dresses into a modernized dress with a bubble-like gather at the bottom.

The idea was simple, but the results were transformative, said Dragoo.

“You would never, ever envision where they started from,” she said.

CANDACE CARLISLE can be reached at 940-566-6889. Her e-mail address is ccarlisle@dentonrc.com .