SALT LAKE CITY, November 16, 2026 — A fashion show at This is The Place Heritage Park debuted the GSL Luxury collection, 21 couture looks inspired by the Great Salt Lake that raised over $1 million for conservation. The project began with a photographer’s dream and grew into a collaboration between student designers and major philanthropic foundations.
The Story Begins With a Dream
In December 2024, photographer Chris Carlson woke with a vision. He had spent years documenting the Great Salt Lake, capturing its vibrant colors, wildlife and singular textures. To him, the lake is a sacred place. In the dream, his photographs had become fashion designs — couture pieces that could make the lake’s crisis visible in a way data alone could not.
“My vision was to create a piece of couture clothing that helped people understand the issues of the lake,” Carlson said. He built 21 concepts around the lake’s ecology: its wildlife, minerals, landscapes and the particular light of blue hour on waning shores. Each concept was tied to a specific photograph he had taken in the field.
Translating an Ecosystem Into Couture
Carlson partnered with fashion design students from Utah State University and Salt Lake Community College. The students spent months translating his concepts into handmade garments. Some pieces required hundreds of hours of work.
The resulting collection reads like a taxonomy of the lake itself. A coat mimics the soft fluff of a bison. Fluttering feathers in green, yellow and red evoke a salt-loving weed. An ombre gown captures the blue hour at the receding shoreline. Student designers Brianne Pearce and Emily Celeste Ball created the Eared Grebe Gown and the Saltair Suit; Ball hand-painted the suit’s blue and white design on black fabric.
“They are to represent all of the beauty and natural aspects that the lake brings … and the importance of saving the lake,” said student designer Autumn Dohm. “It has blown up into a massive production and a work of love for everybody involved.”
A Runway at the Heritage Park
On Saturday night, the 21 looks debuted before hundreds of attendees at This is The Place Heritage Park, roughly 20 miles from the lake itself. The runway was flanked by greenery and LED lights calibrated to each outfit. Models walked to a custom-scored soundtrack while Carlson’s photographs were projected behind them, matching each garment to its source image.
“It’s superseded all expectations,” Carlson said before the show. “I thought it would start out as a small little art show. It’s actually bigger and better than I thought it would be.”
Merging Art and Activism
The project’s financial architecture grew alongside its creative scope. Each of the 21 looks secured a sponsor — anonymous donors and major Utah foundations including the George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Foundation, the Larry H. and Gail Miller Family Foundation, Zions Bank and the Huntsman Family Foundation. Before the show, sponsorships had already raised $250,000 for Great Salt Lake Rising, a coalition working to return water to the lake before the 2034 Winter Olympics.
Lisa Eccles, president of the Eccles Foundation, joined the effort six months ago. She saw the project’s potential to reach beyond the usual circles. “We’re so used to the data and the scientific approach, but this is going to bring art and another generation to the Great Salt Lake,” she said.
At the close of the show, Eccles surprised Carlson and the crowd by pledging an additional $1 million to Great Salt Lake Rising, pushing the project’s total fundraising past the seven-figure mark.
History and Challenges of the Great Salt Lake
The Great Salt Lake is the largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere and the eighth-largest terminal lake in the world. It is a remnant of Lake Bonneville, a prehistoric body of water that once covered much of western Utah, spanning nearly 22,400 square miles at its greatest extent — roughly the size of present-day Lake Michigan. Cataclysmic floods through Red Rock Pass in Idaho and a warming climate left behind the Great Salt Lake, Utah Lake, Sevier Lake and Rush Lake.
The lake’s historical average size (1847–1986) is about 1,700 square miles. In the 1980s it reached a historic high of 3,300 square miles, prompting the West Desert Pumping Project to mitigate flooding. By 2021, after years of sustained drought and increased water diversion upstream, the lake fell to its lowest recorded area: 950 square miles.
Three major tributaries — the Jordan, Weber and Bear rivers — deposit around 1.1 million tons of minerals into the lake each year. With no outlet besides evaporation, those minerals accumulate, creating salinity far higher than seawater. The lake supports millions of native birds, brine shrimp and the world’s largest staging population of Wilson’s phalarope.
What Comes Next
Carlson’s mission has been to keep the Great Salt Lake in the cultural conversation long after the runway lights dim. The $1 million pledge from the Eccles Foundation, added to the $250,000 already raised through sponsorships, will fund Great Salt Lake Rising’s work to restore water flows before the 2034 Winter Olympics arrive in Utah.
Sources
- Great Salt Lake-inspired fashion collection hits the runway, raises over $1 million in support
- Great Salt Lake
- Photographer's dream turns Great Salt Lake into high fashion while raising awareness for Utah's iconic lake
- America's Dirtiest Lake For Swimming In 2026 Is A Popular Destination In Utah
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Photo: Altochic (CC BY-SA 4.0)
