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Can't Miss It: Weekend Edition Nov 20-22
On Friday evening, Seattlest made our way down to the fashion event of the season: Product Runway at the South Lake Union Naval Reserve. Nineteen teams competed to show the best couture creation made of interior design elements.
Glamorous celebrity judges (including Seattle's own Jack Mackenroth), fantastical, high-concept dresses, and an excitingly diverse crowd ranging from young Seattle fashionistas to art students, to representatives from the city's wealthiest families, turned this night into nothing short of elegant, delightful, and just bizarre enough to be interesting. The winning team? GGLO, with a structured, beautifully detailed dress and jacket made of Atlas carpet (see photo on right).
To kick off the evening, host GLAMAZONIA (mermaid-slinky in a bright pink dress and a hairdo colored to match, see photo behind the cut) performed Jimmy James' "Fashionista" to roars of applause from the coiffured crowd. We'd never been to a fashion show before, but the layout of the runway was oddly familiar (thanks, reality tv!): the VIPs entered through a separate set of doors, were photographed by members of the press, and made their way to runway-side seats already stocked with mysterious red goodie bags. The hoi-polloi stood for the event, either on the floor or up in the balconies.
The hor d'oeuvres were plentiful, including a bite of spicy tuna with salmon mousse and a particularly delectable, garlicky phyllo pastry with tomato and soft white cheese; to drink, we had our choice of House Wine, "couture cocktails" (Skyy Vodka and shockingly fluorescent juices), or Dry Soda.
More photos and dress descriptions behind the cut! All photos by the lovely Ashley Balderas.
Finally the show began! GLAMAZONIA introduced the celebrity judges and announced the various textiles and design elements that we'd be seeing ("It can be hard to figure out what this shit is!"). Then, at last, the models began to strut, one by one, down the runway. Their dresses were fabulous, exotic, and varied. We loved the outfits that transformed halfway down the runway (one such dress, a green and silver number from CollinsWoerman Team 2 and made of Momentum/Textus upholstery, placed second) and the plasticky trench coat/high-concept "business suit" look from Ankrom Moisan. The sole male model, sporting a flashy Lego/gladiator look from Bassetti Architects, made the top six.
According to one of CollinsWoerman's design team members, the models were all employees of the firms participating in the event. Our favorite model's dress (a white minidress) didn't make it past the first cut, but we absolutely loved the woman's snappy attitude-filled walk and her gorgeous, strong legs that looked made for stomping down a runway.
On Project Runway, which is the inspiration for Product Runway, the judging of these events takes about ten minutes and two commercial breaks. Here, the judging took notably longer, but we used the time to circulate and talk to the models who were roaming around the floor. The air smelled like wine, plastic, heated rubber, and sweat. From Ms. Trench Coat (made of Maharam): "I've always wanted to model. My face was, like, shaking." "Sure, you can touch my dress," said one of NBBJ's models (or maybe we hallucinated her permission--either way, we certainly touched that lovely gown), and we found the sleek, elegant black dress train's white blossoms to be much foamier and softer than we'd imagined. There were pricey prizes raffled off, including handbags and gift certificates to Canlis. And when the winning dress (GGLO) was announced, there were shocked tears and delighted grins, just like on Bravo--only much, much better because we were actually there.
Product Runway 2009: here we come! And next year, we're splurging on our own fashion-forward outfit for the night. For official photos of the event, check here.
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the official photo site is
http://productrunway.smugmug.com/