A young woman from Argyle has travelled to Montreal this week to take part in the city’s renowned Fashion Week.
Twenty-year-old Antonia Schindle, a third-year textile sciences program student at the University of Manitoba, left for Montreal on Wednesday to see a dress she created modelled along the runway at the Telio Design Competition.
“I can’t put it into words; I’m really anxious and excited and I don’t know what to expect,” said Schindle from her home in Argyle on Tuesday. “I’m just so happy to have this opportunity.”
Schindle is one of just 25 student designers from across the country chosen for the competition, and her design was picked from a field of 116 applicants from 20 different schools.
Up for grabs are five scholarships totalling $10,000, but even if she doesn’t win, Schindle is excited that she is getting the opportunity to show off her creation to buyers from major fashion centres like Paris and New York.
“It’s pretty huge for me,” she said.
The young fashionista found out about the competition through a poster she saw on the wall at her school last August, and after submitting both a fashion and technical sketch of her design to Telio, she heard back in early December that her dress was chosen.
Each applicant was given the task of designing and sewing a high-end women’s outfit using six metres of fabric chosen from 18 fashion fabrics provided by Telio.
Schindle picked two different fabrics for her creation – a chocolate-brown wool rayon blend for the above-the-knee, fitted dress, and a multicoloured silk chiffon, which she used to make the roughly 80 flower appliques which are sewn onto the neck, bodice and skirt.
The students were asked to use all or one of the four elements – earth, wind, fire and water – as inspiration in their designs.
Schindle chose earth, and says she used the surroundings she grew up with as inspiration for the numerous roses that adorn the dress.
“Growing up in Argyle, we have tons of Wild Roses, and my mom has a beautiful flower garden all around our home and ... I wanted to incorporate that into my dress,” she explained.
Schindle had to hand-sew all of the flowers separately, and then sew them on to the dress, a process she said took a lot of time and concentration.
“That was a ridiculous amount of work,” she laughed.
Although she says she’s had a love of fashion her whole life, amazingly, this marks the first time Schindle has ever attempted to design and sew clothing.
“I’ve sewn and stuff before, but this is the first time I’ve gone from sketch to final product with my own idea,” she explained.
Lots of work
Schindle, who estimates she spent over 100 hours working on her dress, was able to finish the work by the Feb. 6 deadline, all the while balancing a full course load of classes at school.
“There were a lot of late nights,” she said.
The dress was modelled on the runway at the Telio Fashion Show last night, and Schindle, who left for Montreal on Wednesday morning, couldn’t have been more excited about the trip.
“I’ve been dreaming about fashion week for ever,” she explained. “It’s something that I’ve really wanted to do for a long time and when I saw this competition I thought it was the perfect chance to see if I had what it takes.”
Despite the long nights and hard work involved in creating the dress, Schindle said the experience has inspired her to try the process again.
“Instead of making me sick of sewing, it’s actually made me want to do way more things – I’ve got a lot of creative juices flowing now,” she explained. “I want to work on more patterns and more designs -- it’s started me on a roll I think.”
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