We are learning that nobody does Bafta TV quite like Daisy May Cooper.

Last year, the This Country actor picked up her Best Female Comedy Performance award while wearing a Swindon Town dress. She used the opportunity to talk about the importance of supporting working-class talent in the entertainment industry, saying on the red carpet: “When you’ve got no money, you have no choices… there are so many brilliant people that don’t have the opportunity.”

This time, she went one step further in her mission – proving herself to be an icon in the making.

Cooper arrived on the Bafta TV 2019 red carpet wearing a bin bag dress, with a trash can lid as a hat. Bits of rubbish were attached to the trail of the dress, while a fake pigeon perched on the lid hat. Despite quite literally being a load of trash, the striking look firmly stole the show.

“It cost about five quid. Yeah, five quid and a load of rubbish,” she told a BBC journalist. “My mother made this dress with my two friends and it took them like three days.”

But there was an important message behind the decision to wear the 60-litre sacks. Cooper wanted to highlight food poverty in the UK and the difference people can make by donating to food banks.

“The reason I’m wearing this is because, if I wore a normal dress, that dress would cost a lot of money. So I thought I’d donate that money to my local foodbank and wear a bin bag instead.”

Recent statistics shared by the Trussell Trust reported that 1.6 million people living in poverty had to rely on food donations over the last year. Among these, over half a million were children. This is mostly because of household incomes not being enough to cover food costs, or changes and delays to benefit payments. Although food banks should certainly not be considered a long-term solution to such poverty, donations make a huge difference to those in crisis.

This is why Cooper’s fashion statement is so important.

You can find out more information about donating to food banks on the Trussell Bank website here. 

Images: Getty