Lexus challenges fashion designers to create accessories from dismantled car

Proving anything can be recycled into something beautiful, luxury car company Lexus asked four innovative fashion designers to re-create the idea of automotive design into fashion accessories using 2,000 disassembled pieces of a Lexus CT hybrid (which is 90 percent recyclable).

A component of The Lexus Fashion Workshop, the resulting works of fashion will be featured in an ad campaign in the January 2012 edition of Vogue and displayed at Art Basel Miami Beach.

The car-turned-fashion accessories include:

“Environmental Crown of Virtue”: An eye-catching headpiece crafted by Moss Lipow with a transmission starter and exhaust manifold gasket.

“The Valve Collection”: Jewelry designer Eddie Borgo chose valve lifters, crank bearings and hose clamps for this unusual necklace and bracelet.

“Nomadic Sanctuary”: John Patrick reinvented the trench coat with this sophisticated look created from plant-based plastic, sustainable sound-dampening material, wire harness, leather seat covers and cargo covers.

“The Luna Shoe”: These sky-high heels were designed by Alejandro Ingelmo from armrest leather trim and clear plastic tubing.

“Merging the worlds of luxury automobiles, art and fashion is another example of how Lexus is ‘Engineering Amazing’ or maybe more appropriately, ‘Engineering Unexpected,’” Brian Smith, vice president of marketing for Lexus, said in a statement. “We were able to challenge four designers to turn one of our most progressive hybrid vehicles into innovative fashion pieces, inspiring the designers, and the world, to see things differently.”

Insider videos of the car being taken apart piece by piece are posted on Vogue's website with interviews with the designers to be released throughout December. The four pieces will be exhibited on display at Art Basel Miami Beach, world renown as one of the top art shows in the Americas.

The recycled fashion accessories will then be sold by private auction to benefit the Council of Fashion Designers of America/Vogue Fashion Fund, a nonprofit trade association that represents some of the leading U.S. designers.