Wedding dress competition picks UC student

I’ve met some pretty cool people in my three years at the University of Cincinnati. Most of them, about 99 percent of those awesome people, have been students, many my age,
some younger.

Either way, they have done or are doing some pretty incredible things.

My friend and fellow News Record employee – when she’s not on co-op working for a design company in a small French town (sounds awful, right?) – Claire Thompson is one of those pretty cool people doing some pretty incredible things.

You see, Claire has been in France since the beginning of winter quarter. We’ve missed having her around, but if she were here, trapped inside the office with us, she wouldn’t have the same opportunity and, I mean, France? Bonjour!

In the last month or so, we learned Claire was entering a bridal gown contest for
Brides.com. OK, at the time it sounded kind of cool, and we (TNR staff) talked about it among ourselves. We were excited. We like Claire. (She’s a third-year graphic design student and page designer extraordinaire.)

More recently, we found out that Claire had not just entered the contest, she was one of 20 semifinalists in the search for the bridal dress that embodies the concept of visionary romance.

“I submitted my sketch on the last day – I almost didn’t do it, but I knew if I didn’t I’d regret it since it was so easy to enter,” Claire said in a Facebook message. (She is in France, after all.) “I found out two days later that I made the semifinals. I freaked out for a little bit because I’m currently co-oping in a small town in France. I knew I wasn’t going to have as many resources as the other semifinalists – such as a body form or sewing machine – but I wasn’t about to let it stop me from moving forward.”

She’s not kidding. Check it out:

Claire spent, in total, approximately 200 hours in the one month she had to hand sew the entire dress.

And, even if she wasn’t my friend, I would think this was impressive.

Before sketching and putting the dress together, Claire had surgery on her eye. Without going into details, it was a pretty intensive operation; her sight really hasn’t been the same since.

So we thought she was a badass before, but really? Sewing four layers of chiffon – which translates to about 6 yards of fabric – by hand? Even if you have perfect vision, this
is incredible.

If you check out any of the photos of the dress, you’ll likely note the bodice has lots of little beads. Those, by the way, were all sewn on by hand.
Talk about meticulous.

During her month of sewing, she broke a few needles and, like she said, was without some pretty basic resources.

“I also constructed the dress solely on my own without any help from a professor or a book. I had to learn how to use my resources and to trust my own judgment,” Thompson said. “I actually cut up my bed sheets to make muslin before I started constructing the dress. I also used myself a lot as a body form when I was draping it.”

The moral of this column is that I want you to vote for Claire. I’ve scoped out her competition on the Web site, and, yeah, OK, there are a few dresses that are kind of nice, but I really prefer hers to any other. Some of them, including the one with peacock feathers, are marginally terrifying.

If she wins the entire competition, Claire will take home a few pennies – something along the lines of $10,000, give or take a buck of two – but if that wasn’t cool enough, Claire’s dress will also be featured on the cover of Bride’s Magazine.

In the immortal words of my dear friend and editor in chief predecessor Kristy Conlin, “That’s pretty awesome.”

For Claire, though, it’s not the money so much that matters.

“As a designer, it’s more important for my work to get noticed than receiving a cash prize,” she said.

I kind of buy that, but there’s no denying the money wouldn’t be a sweet, sweet bonus.
To check out the dresses and to vote [for Claire] visit brides.com/sweeps/dreamdress09/enter. Voting ends May 26.
Ready … Go.