Project Barbie

Hi Laura!

This is a little random, but I wanted to tell you about a little Project Runway challenge I did with some friends at work (Rakesh, Laura, Talia, and Minnie--many of the same people I went with to Emmett's boutique a couple months back). We followed the doll portion of the Barbie challenge as closely as we could:

Yesterday we got a challenge from an editor we work with, to design a gown for Cyndi Lauper to wear to the National Book Awards (we all work in publishing, after all), then after work we had half an hour and a maximum of $30 to spend in an art supply shop near our office to get materials. Then we trekked down to the Times Square Toys R Us (the very same one that the designers went to on the show) and picked up five Beach Fun Barbies (they were only $5.99!), and took a cab to the east side to get crafting at Laura's apartment.

Ordered some pizza, turned on the PR reunion show (Laura had it recorded on DVR), and we got crafting for the next 3 hours. Since we'd gone to an art store and not a fabric store (we realized that it was a bit too far/expensive to go to Mood), we were sewing felt, hot glueing sequins, and even stapling bits of paper. It was a fantastic time. Here are some photos of our end results!

Today we all brought our Barbies into work, and we displayed them in my cubicle along with little descriptions of our designer "visions" for Cyndi. I had a TON of visitors today; people I didn't even know waltzed into my cube to gawk at our craftiness/craziness. Three editors came by to judge our work (all of them Runway fans too, of course), and after much nervousness we received the following email:

All right, we judges have deliberated, and it was an incredibly close call. You guys are freaking incredible, and none of us agreed on the winner! We put together a scientifically tested point system (ranked our faves 1-5, added up the points, lowest score won), however, and the results are below. There was only a four point difference from the #1 to the #5 slot, you creative cats.

"I really struggled between two. I loved both Dianne's and Rakesh's, but Dianne's won out in the end--the money, the book and the leopard print--and let's not forget the glasses--swayed me."

"Laura. The beadwork? Amazing. Totally classy and age appropriate."

"I thought her design was beautiful, very well executed, and elegant. My only concern was that it didn't look like something Cyndi would wear."

"Ok, my vote for the winner would go to Minnie. I thought her design was clever, very much in Cyndi's style, and appropriate (in a Cyndi way) to an awards ceremony."

"My personal fave was Talia's. It was her killer explanation of each element she worked into her outfit that pushed me over the edge. Hilarious. The outfit was the most CL, and, to me, fashion is all about expressing your personality, event be damned."

AND THE WINNER IS...



Minnie with 7 points

FOLLOWED CLOSELY BY….

Laura with 8
Thalia with 9
Rakesh with 10
Diane with 11

Congratulations to everyone!

Can you believe how much thought they put into their judging? Needless to say, the entire experience was INCREDIBLY fun, and even though it was on a much much smaller scale, I think we all went through a bit of what the designers felt every week on the show: lack of confidence with our designs, frustration over the time, budget, and in our case, material availability constraints, the pressure of finishing a beautiful (or at least fun) garment, the joy of sharing our work with others, and the absolute terror of being judged. Now that we're close to the end of our beloved season 2, we're hoping to continue recreating challenges at work--I can't overemphasize what a blast we had. Even my boss got into it, saying that she was going to dream about Barbies tonight. Ha!

Thanks for indulging my long story. Hopefully I'll be in touch with some more runway-related stuff soon!

Dianne




I want to work with Dianne! LK