High school students apply design skills for competition

Many high school students get stoked about cars, sports and the latest electronic gadgets.

But others get excited about something quite different - fashion. They gathered on a Saturday in March at the Fashion Show mall to celebrate the "Fashion Forward: Prom Party Fashion Challenge."

Valley students competed in the show on the famed runway at the mall on the Strip in front of the designers' families, friends and hundreds of mall visitors.

"It was a lot of fun," said Jessica Carranto, a Las Vegas High School senior who competed in the event.

Palo Verde High School senior Alexis Riveria said, "Every year it gets better."

Allison Cox, another Palo Verde senior, was announced as the winner at the end of the three-hour show. She won a prom party package, among other gifts.

The idea for "Fashion Forward: Prom Party Fashion Challenge" came from Shannon Sheldon, a fashion teacher at Las Vegas High.

She asked for grant money from the Junior League to put on an event that was similar to the popular cable TV show "Project Runway" (now seen on Lifetime). She didn't get the grant, but the show was created instead.

In the show's first year, Las Vegas High students conducted a "Paint the Town Red" event, for which the students made red dresses that were auctioned off later.

In the second year, all Clark County School District schools were invited to the show, which morphed into its current "prom party" format.

The competition was judged by professionals from the valley's fashion community, including designers, stylists and owners of fashion businesses.

The show, now in its fourth year, was open to the public and was sponsored by the Junior League of Las Vegas. The league describes itself as "an organization of women committed to promoting volunteerism (and) developing the potential of women" in the valley. Its purpose is "exclusively educational and charitable."

The competition gave students from all over the valley the chance to showcase their talents in designing and making a prom dress.

All of the competitors are family and consumer science students in the School District. The young women worked mostly by themselves, but they did receive help from teachers and volunteers. Many of them worked long hours on their creations.

"We spent two months designing and making the dresses," said Tyler Hollatz, a junior at Centennial High School. "We would spend a lot of our free time working on them. It took us a long time and a lot of hard work."

Carranto and Hollatz said they enjoyed working with others on their projects.

"I like the creativity and energy from all of the designers when we're all collaborating and working together," said Carranto, who has been involved with the Junior League for three years.

Hollatz said, "I like (the process) because it gives us the chance to be creative and to help develop our ideas and to share them with other people."

For the competition, the students were each given a $50 gift card to a local Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft store. They couldn't spend more than $50 on materials.

The competition wasn't all about the dresses. It started out with a recycle/redesign project. Students were given a bag of donated clothes from the Junior League clothing drive and told to make a new outfit. The top students from each school then advanced to the prom dress challenge.

Rivera said working with the Junior League and the show has been an exciting and memorable experience.

"(Every year) we get to design bigger and better things," the senior said. "I feel like I've really been able to express myself through my designs."