The Chimes

Issue date: 10/8/09 Section: Entertainment

Twelve students from the Columbus College of Art and Design have proven your health teachers wrong-there is more than one way to wear a condom.

On Thursday, Oct. 1, CCAD put on their 2009 'Condom Couture' fashion show. This event, held at the Bar of Modern Art, was a celebration of Planned Parenthood's 77th anniversary.

Before the event, there was a reception for patrons featuring a live jazz band, swirling condom-shaped lights, and a slide show about Planned Parenthood.

The program began with a fashion show of designs students had created with condoms.

Then, each student came out with their model and talked about their piece. The event was judged by three fashion experts: Tom Ward, Amy Salinger, and Richard Aschenbrand.

Aschenbrand is the dean of Visual Communications at CCAD. He often serves as a judge at art festivals and competitions.

Amy Salinger is a fashion expert and did work for television shows and publications such as the Oprah Winfrey Show, What Not to Wear, People, and InStyle.

Tom Ward has worked for Gap, J.Crew, and Abercrombie and Fitch; he is currently developing his own clothing brand which will be launched this spring.

In addition to giving each designer a bit of advice, the judges selected the three designers who would receive scholarship money.

The designs were modeled by people from the Central Ohio community, including Maren Roth, owner of Columbus' Rowe boutique.

Some of the designs were barely discernible as having been made out of condoms.

An especially impressive design came from Rachel Kaplan, who made a pair of skin-tight black leggings entirely from condoms and paired them with a feminine aqua-blue top.

Although the model, Ashley Curl, remarked that it took several people to help her get the leggings on, Salinger said that the leggings could be worn out in public and were perfectly in style.





These designs were also remarkable because of the number of condoms used; Alyssa Johnson said that she used over 800 condoms on her purple-and-gold, knee-length dress, including the ones she braided and hand-stitched onto a pair of heels.

Although host Ali Barrett joked "cocktails, condoms, high fashion... typical Thursday night," 'Condom Couture' was anything but typical.

Despite being described as a celebration, it was also an inventive, fun way to raise money and increase awareness for Planned Parenthood of Central Ohio.

By Betsy Melick
Managing editor
emelick@capital.edu

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