 Welcome to CTN member highlights. I'm Leslie McVane. I'm here at Port City Music Hall for WMBG's annual fashion show fundraiser with Dale Robin Goodman, the development director. Hi Leslie, it's a fun night here you know. Yeah well I can't wait to see some of this and Cindy Flanders who is the artistic director of the event. Hello, thanks for coming. Now Dale, how many years have you been doing this? Well WMBG started this 13 years ago. This is 13th annual. It was started by volunteers like Cindy who are interested in the local design community and wearable art and fashion and things that are expressive and energetic and we always have a great time. And you change it up a little bit every year. Now this year you have people from the Circus of Maine Just the opening act. We try to welcome people with something fun and this year Circus Maine is doing a short piece hand balancing so that should be fun and then but the real star of the show is the runway with all the designers and the fabulous creations that they make. Very different very diverse. And you've got music. Yeah DJ Shane, WMPT, I think they call him low down Dirty Jane. I like that. And Cindy now you're the artistic director. What what does that mean? That means that I could spend lots of time coordinating designers and models and getting all their garments in an order that looks beautiful on the runway. And then you send them out there. Send them out there out into the world to do their thing yeah. Now did you sort of interview the designers or did you pick the designers? They are all volunteer. Anyone who expresses interest in being part of our show we welcome them in with open arms. So we have a very eclectic mix on the runway everything from like you know street kind of punk kind of stuff up to you know high fashion. It's like everything. And these are all from the Portland area? Yes all from the greater Portland area we have 12 designers and about 52 walks on the runway tonight. And is this something you do in your day life when you're not doing these events? No no I have worked done design work before and modeling stuff before but yeah so but now I'm just behind the scenes and it's really fun back there. Well now I'm with David Milliken one of the designers of the show tonight. Hi David. Hi. Now you're a student at Graynook Gloucester High School but you're going to pass for their design program. Yep for the fashion marketing program. And how long is that program? Do you go just part of the time? I go about half the day. I leave my school at 10.20. I get there at 11. I leave there at 1.15. And do you go every day Monday through Friday? Yep every day. So it sounds like a wonderful program and this is one of your creations. This is one of them. Do you want to tell us a little bit about what you're wearing? Right okay so first of all this is my one of my denim jackets I had. This was actually my dad's in high school. He gave me and found in the basement. I started off by painting it piece by piece because I didn't have anything to put on it. But then I started ordering patches. I took leather pieces off of other pieces. I hand stitched everything I have as hand stitched. I don't use machine for anything. And these are my pants. These were pants that I was given. I bleached them. I put patches on them as I acquire them. Kind of just go with what I get. So where do you get your ideas? I mean do you do you see a piece of fabric and it says wow you've got to do this or do you just how do you do it? I start off but whatever I acquire for items as patches I buy at shows or different materials I take from different pieces of clothing such as canvas and leather I just feel like I should attach it to something and as I attach it piece by piece the image becomes larger and it just it forms its own piece and I go very slowly and over time it just kind of it makes it itself. I don't plan what I do. Do you play with the fabrics and move them around? Sometimes I put things on impulse and then later on I take them off because I don't like them as much. So there's a lot of cut off items and rips and stuff where I messed up cutting but that's just all piece of the work. So let's bring in a couple of the models and you can tell us what they're wearing. This is Emma Adams. This is my girlfriend. Hi Emma. Hello. Alright she's wearing one of my denim vests that I made. It was a jacket that I found in the state sale and it was insulated. It had snap buttons but it didn't fit me so well so I covered it in canvas and put these these clasps that I took off of camera pouches that has many patches and studs some of them which I made. Do you want to turn around? Yep. This is just some patches that I've acquired over time. This is one that she actually made for me hand stitching on some corduroy and I put that on there. So does he use you as a model quite often? Yeah usually it's usually me yeah. What do you think of his design? I absolutely love it. I've never met anybody who like has these kind of you know ideas and the style I love it. Do you just model the clothing or does he let you actually wear them in real life? Well actually he's made me quite a few garments. I don't have them with me recently anymore but um yeah I really love it. It's awesome. Okay well thank you so much and we'll call in the next person. Hi. Alright this is Sydney. She's wearing a pair of shorts that I've had for a very long time and just recently I've decided to start piecing them together and making something out of them as I figured I'm never going to get rid of them. Can you turn a little bit toward the camera and then let's turn around the back the back. Very nice. Eventually most of my clothing is going to be covered but I kind of go with what I feel and if I feel don't feel like working on a certain item but I feel like working on another I'll start and begin where I feel like it. I've kind of gone with a black and yellow and white theme for these but we'll see where they go. I kind of like that they're just sort of one sided there. It's kind of fun but you never know. You never know. Thank you. Well thank you. I hope you have quite a lot of success. You're going to graduate and then where do you want to go with this? I don't really know. Most of the stuff that I've made is stuff that I just wear and I haven't actually this is actually my first fashion show that I have. Most of the stuff that she's modeled has been act just wearing it about in person and whatnot. I'll see if I go to any more of them. I plan on maybe go to a shoemaking school. I don't really know yet so. And this has been a very exciting time for you and the students at school but I hear the program is closing. Yeah. Yeah. Our fashion program of pads is being cut by the school board and after 27 years this is the last year and we've tried to get them to keep it I'm sorry but at least you got to get through the program. Thank you David. I'm now with Justin Desper. Hi Justin. Hello. Designs fashion and design student at Mecca. Yes. Senior. Senior yes. What happens after this? I go to Europe for a month the day after graduation and then I have an internship with Jill McGowan here in town and I've been talking to transform it in Gorham. Fantastic. So tell me what inspires you? How do you get the ideas for your designs? Well I was a biology student for a few years before I went to Mecca. So I've done a lot of my work based off of things in the natural world that I find beautiful and a lot of the time those aren't things that other people typically find beautiful like fungus, insects. So I sort of like to show what I like about them. And do you take designs from looking through the microscope as well? Not so much. I've taken patterns off of things but nothing really microscopic not yet at least. What an interesting you know inspiration for you. Yeah yeah I think it was sort of just culture shock coming into Mecca from a science background so I just sort of latched on to something that I knew. And why did you why did you make that change from from biology to fashion? Well I had I always loved animals and learning about them and you know like playing with bugs in my backyard but the more I got into the biology program and seeing the jobs out there it just wasn't really for me and I'd got into making costumes for conventions and it was to the point that I was doing that like exclusively in my free time and not doing homework because of it and so when I realized biology wasn't the path that just sort of made sense. Well let's look at some of your lovely designs. Could you introduce your models? So this is Charlotte. She is wearing a piece modeled after the Clatheris Crispus fungus. Charlotte's also a Mecca student, Freshman. Yeah. So this is based on a fungus that looks like this. Yeah yeah pretty much looks like this. I love this dress. Would you turn around please? Thank you. And are you a design student as well? I will be. When I turn senior I'll graduate with a degree in fashion. But you're just getting started here so. Well thank you. So this is Audrey, another Mecca student. This is based off of the maiden veil fungus. So this piece I really wanted to play with the laser cutter and so I built this whole pattern digitally by taking that pattern from a picture of the fungus and placing it on the pattern pieces for the dress and then had it all laser cut. That's fascinating. Could you turn for us? Oh it's great. Terrific. And what is that? What is the fabric? It's a leather? It's a leather. Yeah. Very nice. Thank you. This is just elegant. Yeah. Ellie in the elegant dress. Yeah so this piece is called Lamella which is the term for the little gill things underneath mushroom caps. So yeah that's sort of. I can see. It's lovely. How does it feel wearing that dress? It's good. Do you feel rather elegant? Yes. I think it brings brings me up. Could you turn around so we could see the back? Oh it's just it's just beautiful. Thank you so much. All three of them are lovely. Well thank you and have fun at the show tonight. I hope to. Thank you so much. Bye bye. Bye.