And the Best of Show goes to WOMEN IN DESIGN!!

In a previous post I had mentioned that I would tell you some stories about bears at camp. So here's one: I was sitting at the desk in my cabin, Ponderosa, working on the headdress for the Women In Design's Pret-a-Porter Design Competetion entry. An evening of weaving carpet fibers into soldered wire had worn me out, so I grab Itchy & go into the bedroom for the night. Right as I'm starting to lay down the walls shake with three tremendously loud roars from a bear..right out my front door. Itchy jumps up for an attack (I'd like to think instead of a flee) & I muffle her under my blanket. Two thoughts pop up in my head, 1) Listen for your car alarm to go off. If it doesn't go off, I isn't the nasty bear that smashed the windows of two cars last month. 2) WHY COULDN'T THEY PUT ANY LOCKS ON THE DOORS IN THESE CABINS!! Luckily the bear walked to the side of my cabin & smashed open my trash enclosure scattering all of my bathroom waste all over. [Side note: I do put the chair infront of the door every night now just incase.]
End of story...but what was passing through my mind this Friday while our model Shannon was taking the runway. In the end, we won the competetion against forty other competetors in the design profession. An easy feat when you are working on your own in a cabin in the woods, pleased with your finished product. Unbelieveable when we pulled up to the Exdo Center & there's a line formed on three sides of the building to get in.
To explain what was done. The Pret-a-Porter is a design competetion for Architects, Interior Designers & Engineers, aka those in the design profession, to make a haute coutoure outfit with the materials from an interiors manufacturer. The manufacturers & teams are paired up randomly. The Women In Design got Karastan Carpet. I was brought onto the team after the inital brainstorming was done to do the headpiece. The theme for our design was the seen & unseen sides of carpet. The look was towards the Poirot designs of the 1920s. The seen design was the coat made out of the carpet. The unseen was the lingerie made out of carpet backing.
The fur is all hand latched carpet fibers. The curves on the jacket are done with wire mesh...being worn by our 90 lb model, Shannon:)
The beautiful corset was all hand punch needled by Jenny Gray my homegirl. Way to take the leap Jen!
Here's Shannon walking the runway after they announced we won best in show.
A close up of the headdress from the side. Two tier with braids...It was supposed to have a fur headband but at the last moment it was too much fur, so Jen rocked out some pom-poms.

We all celebrated the night away afterwards. Like my future brother-in-law said, I asked for two fingers of gin, starting at my pinky & ending at someone else's thumb. It was worth the headache. The only problem is how to top winning your first time out? A bigger headdress?