Following BART’s elimination of paper tickets in November last year, the transit organization was left with thousands of tickets that would never be sold. But instead of being shredded and thrown away, those tickets are destined to make their final appearance in an unlikely setting — at a fashion show on Sept. 13.

BART’s paper ticket fashion show is slated to feature student designers from four Bay Area schools, including Oakland School for the Arts (OSA). The charter high school is a visual and performing arts powerhouse, with actress Zendaya, singer Kehlani and late actor Angus Cloud numbering among its graduates. The student designers will be competing against college fashion students from San Francisco State University, San Francisco Academy of Art University and City College of San Francisco.

(Left to right) Fashion design students Ella Marcial and Sadie McMahon design and make clothes from old, discontinued BART paper tickets in the fashion studio at the Oakland School for the Arts high school in Oakland, Calif., on Aug. 22, 2024.

The project was inspired by designer Sean Porter’s blue paper ticket dress, which was displayed in the window of Piedmont Fabric in Oakland in 2015. When BART chief communications officer Alicia Trost heard that the discontinued tickets were headed for the trash, it gave her an idea.

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“That's always been in the back of my mind, that beautiful dress made out of blue paper tickets,” Trost told SFGATE.

Now, that dress is on the minds of 20 fashion design students at OSA, where this competition is also serving........

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