Marissa Postre – a Filipina nanny in UAE, is famous for making gowns with recycled materials.Image Credit: Supplied
Dubai: This holiday season, a 65-year old Filipina nanny in Dubai has a holly jolly Christmas message with an evergreen cheer.
Meet Dubai resident Marissa Postre – a nanny to children aged 16, 12 and 9, and a creative gown maker who is popular and respected in the Filipino community. At a recent Filipino event, she came dressed in a blue and gold Christmas-tree inspired gown.
She made the gown out of plastic bags used to pack bottled water and adorned it with red and gold tinsel garlands; white, gold and red Christmas baubles – complete with a green headdress and a star on top. It took her a week to finish the elaborate gown, that earned her the ‘Recycling Queen for 2022’ award.
A week before that, at a grand Filipino Christmas event at Zabeel Park, Postre sashayed in another Christmas-tree inspired green gown, made of old green textile decorated with gold tinsel garlands, and pinned with various sweets and candies. As for the headdress, she meticulously folded hundreds of instant coffee wrappers and turned them into a one-foot star tiara.
Green message
The gowns are a way for Postre to channel her creativity and express her advocacy. She told Gulf News: “My gowns are very colourful; and I design, create and wear them to deliver my green message that everyone must show their care for the environment.’
“I use every day materials found at home and turn them into something fashionable. From shopping bags, plastic wrappers, spoons, forks, foils, coffee sachets, plastic and styrofoam cups; discarded household decorations, old garments, etc. I can recycle and upcycle them.
“Whenever I attend social and community events, I bring joy to people because of my bright creations and I’m happy that they also recognise why I wear gowns made of discarded materials,” added the Filipina nanny, who learned the basics of dress-making after attending a free vocational course offered by the Philippine Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA). Read more here: https://gulfnews.com/uae/watch-filipina-nanny-in-dubai-brings-green-cheer-on-christmas-1.92879430