Field to fashion

By Doug Rich

Cotton growers depend on fashion designers to produce cotton garments people want to buy, and fashion designers depend on cotton growers to produce quality cotton fiber. But the two groups rarely cross paths.

The Denim Runway Design contest at Kansas State University will bring these two groups together. Thanks to Cotton, Inc., the Kansas Cotton Association, and the Plains Cotton Cooperative Association, future fashion designers at K-State will be able to follow cotton from the field to the finished product.

A similar project was offered at Texas Tech University the last two years. Emma Matkin, PCCA, said the major difference between the TTU and K-State contest is the length of time the contest runs. The TTU contest is spread out over a period of about six months. At K-State the contest was announced to the students in mid-August and they will have to complete their designs by the end of November.

The K-State project started when Joycelyn Burdett, assistant professor in the Department of Apparel, Textiles, and Interior Design at K-State, received a grant from Cotton Inc. Cotton Inc., supported by checkoff funds from growers, offers grants to educators to teach future fashion professionals more about cotton.

"I came up with this idea and submitted a proposal for a grant and it was accepted," Burdett said.

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