Clay Center’s Barbie contest is oh so fashionable
Monica Orosz
Daily Mail staff
Thursday March 15, 2007
If you had to be stranded somewhere without a clothing store handy, you might consider asking along a Clay Center employee – or at least the 25 who participated in a recent in-house contest.
Using only items they could readily find in their own workspaces, the employees were invited to come up with a creative, if not haute couture, outfit for a Barbie doll.
The purpose was boosting morale for a group of people whose job is to help visitors have fun. They long ago realized they need to have a little fun, too.
Lewis Ferguson, who works for the center’s Avampato Discovery Museum, said the morale committee actually formed at the former Sunrise Museum on Myrtle Road and has continued since the museum moved to the Clay Center.
“We value fun in the workplace,” he said. “We’re in the business of providing fun and if we’re not having fun, visitors won’t.”
The committee plans activities – Christmas parties, baby showers, excursions for ice cream — and every once in a while, hits a home run with an idea like the Barbie contest, developed as a sort of takeoff on the popular Bravo TV series “Project Runway.” In the show, a group of would-be designers competes to make clothing using a challenging series of supplies or design parameters.
Project Runway, Clay Center style, had its own rules.
“They could use anything in their office, but it had to be things in their office,” Ferguson explained. “For methods of adhesive, they could go outside their office. They could use the Barbie’s existing clothing, but it could not show through in the finished design.”
Participants had no advance notice, so they couldn’t stockpile items. Even when told of the daunting task, 25 people, men and women, creative types and even accounting types, stepped up immediately to give it a try.
On one episode of the real “Project Runway,” a designer used a furry bathroom rug to make a collar for a coat.
The Barbie version was no less creative.
An oversized martini glass (lucky possession of an employee who plans cocktail parties) and some cut-up bubble wrap with Barbie splayed inside was “Bartini,” and won Missy Menefee the Most Outrageous award.
Teresa Fogus used a balloon to create a tube dress, paperclips to make surprisingly detailed wire jewelry and some fur (who doesn’t have that on hand in the office?) for trim – an effort that won her both Best Overall Look and Most Creative Use of Materials.
Jessica Duffield took newspapers (presumably on hand because she’s in the marketing department) to craft a dress bag and tiny entertainment section in the hand of her Newspaper Gal. She won Best Themed Outfit.
Aspirin became baubles for necklaces. Ribbon became a harem outfit and bulletin board pushpins became (ouch) earrings. An iPod cozy on the desk of someone at the ticket counter became a lovely dress.
“They had the biggest challenge down there,” Ferguson said.
Maybe not. Someone in accounting created a dress from green ledger paper.
When is a coffee filter not a coffee filter? When it turns into a skirt, of course.
It may have been all in fun, but the creativity was rewarded by an actual judges panel, composed of local decorator Gayle Twigger, artist Mack Miles and Clay Center employee Bill Jeffries, who Ferguson said is a fan of “Project Runway” and could therefore apply the proper judging standards.
“This has been the biggest hit,” Ferguson said.
“The bad thing is we’re already getting questions about what’s next.”