Teens cash in on design contest

Business Wire, June 6, 1996

NILES, Ill.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 6, 1996--Royalty checks, museum exhibits, awards ceremonies.

Sounds like the heady lifestyle of a famous artist, movie star, or fashion designer. Or a teenager from Santa Barbara, Calif.

A very lucky classroom full of fashion design students can now boast that they have had their creations displayed in a museum right next to the works of prolific fashion designers Geoffrey Beene and Tony Award winner William Ivy Long. Three of those students were also chosen as top designers and are now under contract with The Ashton-Drake Galleries, a major doll manufacturer. And they can thank their art teacher for everything.

Kasia Stefanik, an art teacher at S.B.H.S. since 1969, was contacted by the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and asked if a few of her Fashion Illustration students would draw designs for a new fashion doll named Gene. The Gene doll, created by illustrator Mel Odom and produced by Ashton-Drake Galleries, was slated as the focal point of the museum's currently running exhibit entitled Fashions Designed With a Doll in Mind, featuring over 900 rare and exquisite dolls.

Not wanting to exclude any of her students, and rather than just have them submit drawings, Stefanik proposed that each student design and actually sew an original Gene creation for display at the exhibit.

Ashton-Drake readily agreed to the idea and pitched in by donating Gene dolls for each student to work on, as well as boxes of designer fabrics. Ashton-Drake then decided to take it a step further and launched the Young Designers of America Awards program which would encourage young people to pursue a fashion career by granting recognition, cash prizes and contracts to the top student designers.

Now, not only would their work be on display at the art museum, but three students would be invited to sign contracts with Ashton-Drake to receive royalty payments on their designs when their respective ensembles were released as part of the Gene line.

After five months of researching, drawing, designing, and sewing, the garments for the Gene doll were finally finished and professionally judged. The winners - Michele Gutierrez, 18, Shelley Rinker, 17, and Elika Shahrestani, 15, all first-prize winners in the Best Overall Costume, Best Period Costume and Most Original Costume Design categories, respectively - can expect to see their creations released by Ashton-Drake in the next year. And they can also expect a royalty check based on sales of their particular designs just like any adult designer would earn at Ashton-Drake.

"It's such a great example of how business, the arts and the community can come together in a positive manner," said Ashton Drake's Senior Product Development Manager Joan Greene. "On the strength of this project we are going to move forward to make this an annual event."

"Someday the kids will look back and be amazed at how much they accomplished with this project," Stefanik said. "This is real life. They took it through to a final product - doll, illustration, costume, story. It's an entire package, accessorized right down to the toenail polish."

And how did Geoffrey Beene and William Ivy Long get involved? Although Gene is a relatively new sensation, the era that she represents, Hollywood's golden age, coupled with her extraordinary wardrobe, instantly captured their attention and both offered to design original creations for her debut at the museum's fashion doll exhibit. Her famous admirers also include movie star Demi Moore, who was so taken with Gene at her 1996 New York Toy Fair premier, she purchased the original plaster cast from the doll's creator, Mel Odom, for inclusion in her yet-to-be-opened doll museum.

All the students' designs are currently on display at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. To access the designs on the Internet, see http://www.sbceo.k12.ca.us/(Note 1)kinglab2.

Gene is produced by The Ashton-Drake Galleries and is priced at $69.95. She is available to order by calling 1-888-FOR-GENE. For more information, contact Joan Greene at Ashton-Drake at 847/581-8092 or Kim Durk at Durk & Associates at 312/327-9094.

Note 1: In the World Wide Web address above, (Note 1) should be

replaced by a tilde without a space before or after it.

The tilde was replaced for transmission purposes.

CONTACT: The Ashton-Drake Galleries

Joan Greene, 847/581-8092

or

Durk & Associates

Kim Durk, 312/327-9094