Youth Designer Challenge - Salvation Army

Indiana Fashion Week kicks off with the three-day, Project Runway style INDFW Youth Designer Challenge. In partnership with Salvation Army, the challenge features eight (8) high school students who aspire to be a part of the fashion industry. The Twist? These students have little-to-no experience designing.  On day one of the challenge, aspiring youth designers will visit a local thrift store where they will be given $30 and 45 minutes to gather items to up-cycle into all new, runway-worthy looks. Day one ends with an ideation session, in which the youth designers will sketch the first drafts of the looks they desire to create during the design challenge. On day two, the selected youth will visit the “The Creativity Lab;” a pop-up  garment production factory . The youth designers  are partnered with mentors to create their looks, which will be exhibited during the finale runway show.  

Indiana Fashion Week's finale day. The students will go behind the scenes of a runway show and work in specific areas of interest, prep for their segment and then model down the runway in their created garment or they can opt for a model to wear their designs. This is a long day, but fun and insightful.