The “How Do You Wear Your Bacon?” competition debuted as a collaboration between the first annual Iowa State Bacon Expo and The Fashion Show 2014 Saturday.

Inspired by Lady Gaga’s 2011 Franc Fernandez meat dress, the bacon and fashion collaboration started with an email from Jake Swanson, director of the expo,  to different organizations around campus.

Sara Kinderknecht, co-producer of The Fashion Show, answered the email hoping to get the name of The Fashion Show out in a different ways around campus.

She said she thought it was a fun and creative way to join forces with the expo and get both of their names out and around campus.

“Food and fashion are two of my favorite things,” Sara said about collaborating with the expo.

Supplied with ten pounds of Hormel and Corn King Bacon and other supplies such as staples, hot glue, safety pins and fishing line, the teams were to make a garment out of the bacon  and they had a little over an hour to complete their designs.

When I got to the Expo they had just started designing their garments, they had a little over an hour to create the outfits. They had three judges planned out but one was MIA close to the end of the designing time, so they kindly asked me if I wanted judge and of course my answer was yes! The other judges were part of the actual Bacon Expo. The judge’s weren’t given any criteria for how the outfits were supposed to look, so we ended up deciding that both of the groups deserved to win, and a tie was announced.

There were two groups designing outfits for the show, the first group consisted of Brandt Schumacher an Iowa State grad from 2011 and a member on Beta Theta Pi Fraternity, his co-designer Jacob Duncan a senior in architecture is also a member of Beta Theta Pi, Jacob’s younger sister Shelby Duncan was their lovely model she is a freshman in apparel design and merchandising. The whole afternoon is was about 38 degrees outside, Shelby was freezing cold, and I could see her shivering while Brandt composed the armor like bodice on her. Their dress design idea originated with a warrior like bodice and flowed into a fringy skirt. The design was very well thought out, the bodice consisted of a sweetheart neckline, and Brandt create pattern by positioning the strips of bacon in almost circular flowing curves. Jacob constructed the skirt using a plastic bag as the backing, he draped the back as if it were tassels on a Grecian warriors skirt; he secured the bacon with super glue and safety pins. Through the whole dress they used about four and a half pounds of bacon.

The second group was made of two guys from the same Fraternity as the other group, Beta Theta Pi. Kellen Gorman a freshman in architecture, and Braiddey Ruzicka a sophomore in industrial design. Kellen was a designer for the team, but also the model. They went with a classic menswear look, with the accessories made of bacon. He had the top hat, tie, pocket square, suspenders, and a cane to top off the whole look. They merely covered pieces of clothing they already had with them in bacon, they mostly stapled and glued the bacon to the articles. They used about four and a half pounds of bacon to cover all the accessories in the look. My favorite part of the outfit was the use of the cane, I thought it was unique and different, I definitely wouldn’t have thought to go that route with the look.

Overall the first ever Bacon Fashion Show went well, they had a good turnout and spread the word about both the Expo and The Fashion Show. They hope to continue next year with another collaboration and keep the Bacon Fashion Show going for years to come.