What happens when you combine “Seattle’s favorite 7’2” drag queen Glamazonia,” the design and architecture elite of Seattle, and gowns made of carpet and girls wearing nothing but 1”x1” pieces of green tile? The first annual Product Runway, held in Seattle at the South Lake Union Naval Reserve on May 2, 2008.
The night played like a who’s who of Seattle’s most fashionable designers and architects rubbing elbows and looking fabulous. The event was a fashion show where designers and architects were paired with distributors, such as Statements, to create a wearable, fashionable ensemble made almost solely out of the distributor’s product, while competing for bragging rights a plaque and an exclusive invitation to the VIP after party cruise.
The event was sponsored by the Interior Design Coalition (IDC) of Washington. Bringing together designers and architects from around the region and for the first time involving design firms from Canada, whom Statements was partnered with. The teams were chosen back in January and had until the event to make their innovations come to life. Each runway worthy creation was judged by a panel of celebrity judges within the fashion or design world. Along with locally known names such as furnishing and fashion accessory designer Angela Adams and director of fashion for Nordstrom June Rau, the Bravo channel provided more nationally known celebrity names; Jack Mackenroth Season 4 Project Runway contestant and Matt Lorenz winner of Bravo’s 2006 Top Design competition.
It is no stretch to say the winners of the event should definitely have bragging rights. Although all the designs were amazing the winning designs possessed the extra umph of fashion and design with some surprise. The winning dress had a somewhat Heidi meets Star Wars theme made solely out of carpet from GGLO and Atlas Carpet Mills. Second place, and my tie for personal favorite, was an amazing two tone upholstery fabric dress created by the partnering of Collins Woerman 2 and Momentum Group. The model came out wearing a silver gray mini with a matching lime green puff sleeve jacket and mid runway the puff sleeves were let go and exploded into a dramatic floor length two tone contemporary spin on a ball gown. Third prize was a combinations of upholstery fabric and office furniture systems by yet another creative grouping, Callison 2 and Allsteel. The model marched down the runway wearing what appeared to be a gun metal bubble skirt and corset in black and white with eggplant purple detailing but once she reached the end of the runway she removed her skirt revealing stove pipe city shorts in the same gun metal color and put her arms through holes in the jacket giving it a puff sleeve biker look. But the fun did not stop there. As she made her final pose at the end of the runway and faced the audience a man clad in dark sunglasses from the VIP section of the audience hurdled onto the runway with two cans of spray paint and started spraying her jacket graffiti style, with the same purple color accenting on her outfit and then disappeared from the runway as she turned and walked away.
Overall Product Runway was such a success for the IDC there was no question of whether it would return next year. The waitlist had upwards of 200 ticket requests before they had to close the online ticket reservations and many requests were still coming in days before the show. With such a turnout the IDC can not wait to see how much bigger and better next year can and will be.
