Albuquerque fashion acolytes: Prepare for a culture clash that has yet to be seen.
Clash Couture, featuring stylists from the Duke City’s top salons and design academies, is that force. It’s a live fashion design competition in the vein of Project Runway that reflects Albuquerque’s fashion sensibilities and has been shortened in the interest of time, event director Joe LiRosi said.
“We wanted to make sure it’s not just a boring fashion show that people end up watching,” LiRosi, director also of Toni and Guy Hairdressing Academy, said. “We’ve done so many fashion shows. It’s not that entertaining. We really wanted to do something engaging to capture the audience.”
The idea was originally conceived by Josh Talamante, a recent high school graduate from East Mountain Charter School and incoming UNM freshman.
Clash Couture started out as Talamante’s senior project, and, after receiving help from LiRosi, the idea came to fruition.
Talamante said he’s eager to see how receptive people are to the event.
“I am so ecstatic about this,” Talamante said. “Coming from a small school and just having this begin as senior project, you’re not expecting too much. I love this idea. I hope Albuquerque is going to love it, too.”
Here’s how the event works: Each team is made up of three central figures — a make-up artist, a hairdresser and a designer, all of whom work together to make the flashiest and most avant-garde look, but are all constrained by time limits.
The make-up artists get five minutes; the hairdressers get 10 minutes, and the designers get 20 minutes to create the runway look while the audience watches from below.
In another twist to the competition, each team member must incorporate a special item, like Iron Chef, into the look for it to count, LiRosi said.
“Make-up might get a tile or something that they have to glue to the model’s face,” he said. “We want something very avant-garde and very eclectic.”
With the unorthodox format in place, Kaily Buelow, a hairdresser at Orbit Salon, said she doesn’t know what to expect out of the competition.
“I am nervous.” Buelow said. “I mean, I have been rushed before. I have done fashion shows and weddings, but I never have had just 10 minutes.”
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Adding to the uneasiness, each entrant doesn’t even know what they’ll have to work with. Each receives a box full of random materials, such as couch liner or umbrellas. They then must construct a look solely from the materials available to them, LiRosi said.
Aura Spurling, the resident costume designer at Fusion Theatre Company, said it will be a fun-filled, challenging competition.
“I love the idea of all these creative elements coming into place,” Spurling said. “It’s a creative party.”
From there, the finished looks on the model are sent down the runway and the audience chooses a winner by applause. The winning team gets $500.
The event, hosted by Toni and Guy Hairdressing Academy (formerly Urban Academy) and the Art Center Design College, is a charity function for Arts in the Schools.
Local big-name designers and design companies including Inspire, Chez D’Or, Sanctuary, Orbit, Alchemy and M & Company forged together to make the event successful, said Joanne Pils, co-organizer and director of Student Services at The Art Center.
“We had no idea it was going to be this magnitude of an event,” Pils said. “What has happened is that so many factions of the community and students — everybody pulling together to support a fabulous charitable organization.”
