Project Catwalk

I could not be happier. There is a new tv series in The netherlands called Project catwalk and it is a contest for 'young' and not so young fashion designers that want to have their own label. It started off last Monday and I missed it. I was so happy when I found the first sequel on the internet and I watched it over and over again. The first challenge for the designers was to go to THE shopping street in Amsterdam (called the Kalverstraat in case you ever want to visit Amsterdam...) and collect rubbish that they would then have to use to sew a party dress. It set my heart afloat....For a gal that has bought Harpers Bazaar, Vogue and Elle ever since she was 11 years old, this is just heaven on earth. I have always drawn up designs for clothes, even when I was in class at school. I used to have lots of paper in my schoolbooks and when the teacher was telling something interesting about the middle-ages or Napoleon, or perhaps the monsoon season or earthquakes, I was secretly drawing up new designs for dresses, brooches, trousers and shirts. I sometimes wonder how in the world I managed to end up with the high graded that I had....
Anyway, the reason I loved this episode is that they were very limited in their materials, but still had to find a way to make something lush and luxurious. One designer thought she was really lucky, because she found a leather jacket, another one found a leather chair that she stripped completely, another one found artificial grass (I guess they must have been looking in the garbage containers of the shops, or this street is really covered in strange rubbish). There was this one guy though that was really quiet, I spotted him straight away. He went for the green garbage bin liners (that would have been my choice as well, as it is so pliable). The interesting thing was that the designer that went for the thing closest to normal cloth (the one with the leather jacket), was voted out by the jury straight away. The person who had materials that had nothing to do with textiles, which was the one that with the plastic garbage bags, was the one that won.
After they had first picked their materials I was sketching what I would have made from  those plastic garbage liners. I had not drawn up dresses for almost 20 years! It is funny how something like this can transport you back in time, reminding you of your dreams. I think I did pretty well though...I was supposed to be a lawyer now, but I ended up being a bear artist, which is a whole lot closer to a fashion designer than I would have been if I would have just been a lawyer.
If you would like to see the episode, it is still on the internet (but it is in Dutch....):
http://www.rtl.nl/service/gemist/maandag/, you see a box with Project Catwalk and then click on 'bekijk' (left under)