GM FYI Blog

Isaac Mizrahi gets his from old Hollywood movies. Marc Jacobs finds his in the fashions of his youth. While a designer’s inspiration comes in many forms, one statement holds true: fashion is only as good as the inspired mind behind it.

This week, one group of aspiring designers found their inspiration in a collection of GM vehicles — the Pontiac Solstice, the Cadillac Escalade, the Buick Lucerne, the Chevrolet HHR, and the Saturn VUE Green Line hybrid. Students at Chicago’s International School of Design and Technology used IMAGINE 2006 as the forum to present more than 100 submitted garments designed to capture the spirit and innovation of the cars themselves.

GM has been the title sponsor of IMAGINE’s GM Fashion Design Competition for the past four years. It’s a natural fit because designers, both in the fashion and automotive industries, are routinely influenced by trends, color, shapes and technology. This annual competition highlights that relationship, and offers students a unique opportunity to display their workmanship side-by-side with the cars that inspired them. As the students’ creations were paraded down the runway in Chicago’s Great Hall at Union Station, the correlation was obvious.

This year’s winners:

• Barbara Ketonen, a senior from Elgin, Ill. — Buick Lucerne

• Ana Carolina Cantillano, a senior from Brazil — Cadillac Escalade
• Kristen Lee Arvidson, a senior from Mt. Prospect, Ill. — Chevrolet HHR
• Anna Van Essen, a junior from Sweden — Pontiac Solstice
• Rachel Bommer, a senior from Rockford, Ill. — Saturn VUE Green Line

The winners received a $500 cash award from GM and a $200 gift certificate from an industry wholesale source. Congratulations to all the IADT students who participated. May you continue to be inspired…

To see more photos from the event, please visit our Flickr albums.