The Fashion Show

Because, as I think I said, or at least I thought a lot in my head this weekend, in grief and sadness, life still carries on, I thought I would take a few minutes to share with you the fashion show from Thursday night.

If you've missed me talking about it before, it is the annual fund raiser for IIDA NE (the New England Chapter of the International Interior Design Association). Interior Design firms team up with industry sponsors to create fashions from industry materials such as upholstery fabrics, carpets, tiles, rubber flooring, etc. The list is pretty much endless. Every year, there is a theme to the show. This year was...

For our entry, we chose to pay tribute to fashion icon, Alexander McQueen. 

Each entry gets to pose behind a shadow screen before taking to the runway. 

They have two other screens at the sides of the stage that show love video feeds. 

You might remember these paint brushes from my earlier post about the fashion show. We turned them into a necklace, and also cut the bristles off to add trim to the head piece.

The dresses were made out of canvass drop clothes, and the underskirts were made from a woven plastic material used for outdoor furniture. 

Our second dress had a hat made from paint can lids, and a necklace made from paint can handles. (hard to see here). 

The real tribute to McQueen came from the performance art part of our entry. We had two more people ambush the end of the runway with pant spray guns, and paint the model. See our inspiration here.  Ironically, we were blatantly and admittedly ripping him off, and we won for Most Original! But, I can totally feel fine about it when I review the ideas in the other entries (which I will show you soon). 

I have a video of the painting part, but I can't seem to upload it. Maybe some other time. 

That's me in the middle, with the models and the painters. Aren't the painters creepy? I was so nervous about the live painting thing the whole time. I didn't want to do it. But, I guess now I'm glad I didn't fight it too hard!

So, what did other people do? Well, the entry that won for Best Use of Materials did a Beatles theme:

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

Yellow Submarine

Strawberry Fields

Octopus's Garden

The team that won for Best Interpretation of Theme did a space theme made from leather and tile.

 

The team that won for Best Construction did Alice in Wonderland: 

 

But they weren't the only ones...

 

There was also a lot of Andy Warhol:

The team that won Best in Show definitely deserved it. They always do great stuff (as much as I hate to admit it, cause sometimes it feels like they always win something just because of who they are). Anyway, they did a religion mixed with corporate America theme, which they called Magical Kingdom Come. It earned a standing ovation, something I have never seen before in my 8 years of attending the show. 

This is a really tall guy, on really tall shoes. When he models, he often likes to make an impact by revealing something feminine. He always creates a sight to be seen, that's for sure.

So, if you've managed to make it this far, you must think the fashion show is as cool as I do. There were 22 entries, and I took over 100 pictures, so I focused on the winners and tried to give you just a taste of this crazy event. I hope you enjoyed my little walk down the runway. 

PS, if you click on any of the photos, you should be able to see a larger version.