Besides all of the movie and TV news, the most popular thing to see at San Diego Comic Con each year is the fantastic cosplay - and it's all of this cosplay that inspired rising stars in the fashion industry for their marvelous couture creations at the inaugural Her Universe Fashion Show.
The show - complete with a DJ - was co-sponsored by clothing company Hot Topic and pop culture giant Nerdist Industries as well as hosted by geek fashion maven Ashley Eckstein (who also voices Ahsoka Tano on the animated series Star Wars: Clone Wars). A contest was held before the show with 36 designers spending weeks fabricating some of the coolest dresses inspired by everything geeky - from sci-fi TV shows and movies, to comic books, to video games.
The concept of the show (which drew over a thousand people to its premier) was to bring geek fashion to a whole new level in the couture fashion industry - and in my opinion, it succeeded on many levels. The rules were simple - create a fashion-forward dress drawing inspiration from Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel, DC Comics, and various other sci-fi/fantasy properties.
Winners were decided two ways - Audience Choice and Judge's Choice - with the each creation either worn by a model or the designer on the runaway in groups of 6. Meanwhile, the DJ pumped out geek-infused jams as a high-intensity light show was displayed. The judges were just as mixed as the designs themselves, hailing from a multitude of backgrounds: Chloe Dykstra (Heroes of Cosplay), Justine Ezarik, Hilly and Hannah Hindi (The Hillywood Show), Cindy Levitt (Senior Vice President Merchandising at Hot Topic), Lacey Prince (Fashion Product Development for Lucasfilm), Tara Sinclair (Senior Licensing Manager Disney Consumer Products), and custom jewelry designer Tarina Tarantino.
The 90-minute show was quite impressive and entertaining and adds a unique twist to the idea of cosplay in a direction that is good for nerds, geeks, and Comic Cons in general. As you can see in the gallery below, a lot of the fashion entries, while not necessarily practical, were highly interesting and uniquely inspired. The audience choice winner was REGINA'S CURSE (Once Upon A Time) submitted by Andrew MacLaine and the judge's choice winner was GREAT SKIRT, MARTY! (Back to the Future) submitted by Amy Beth Christenson.
Other favorites were the WHOVIAN SCARF DRESS with TIN DOG PURSE (Doctor Who) by Tanya Nicole and THE HOBBIT WEDDING GOWN (The Hobbit) by Cressie Lewis.
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Hopefully, the Her Universe Fashion Show will return next year to Comic-Con 2015 - so that we can what other blends of geek and fashion culture this community can come up with.
Stay tuned to the rest of our Comic-Con 2014 coverage.
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Follow me on Twitter - @MoviePaul - and tell me what geek-related show you would use for fashion inspiration.