For the past few months, twelve Denver fashion designers have been hard at work creating their own version of Project Runway, and now a piece by each of these talented tailors is on display at the Denver Public Library's Central Branch for DPL's Frock Out Denver: Independent Designers Challenge. From now until December 5, you can pop into the library for an up-close and personal look at the fabulous winter party dresses that the designers have created.
Seeing the frocks properly staged on the mannequins really highlights the careful thought that each designer put into their creations. I was particularly eager to see how Tricia Hoke’s creation would come out, since there were several long scarves attached to the short, gathered kelly green dress. When properly draped on a mannequin, the dress suddenly worked — appearing to be something out of a Technicolor version of an Aubrey Beardsley drawing.
The collection of dresses holds a little bit of something for everyone. With everything from a beautifully draped grey velvet, 1930s-style dress by Lourdes Garcia, to the short purple ruffled “girly rock ‘n’ roll party dress” by Melissa May, the display has more than enough variety to awaken the design critic in all of us. I found myself privately assigning the dresses to their proper settings — for an elegant cocktail reception I would choose Adam Van Eeckhout’s grey silk dupioni dress with its gorgeous floor length scarf, but for a night of mingling with hipsters I would definitely want to wear the structural, peacock-inspired navy blue dress by Rebecca Anne Tischler.
The dresses on display have been donated by the designers for an auction to benefit the library, to be held after the challenge’s culminating runway show at 8 p.m. December 6 in Schlessman Hall at the Central library. Tickets to this free event are available at the information desk of the Central library, located at 10 West 14th Avenue Parkway. For more information, click here, and to vote for your favorite design you can go here.
And, if all this fashion fabulousness makes you want to vote on more fashion, you can rate the Project Runway designs here, and you can even create your own fashion fantasy team from the Project Runway contestants at this site.
-- Aubrey Shoe
