Young designers and stylists walked the catwalk to show off their clothing selections, creations, designs and thriftiness.

Sylvia Wacholtz, 16 and a member of the C/C Sidekicks, designed a traditional Polish folk dress as a way to connect to her Polish heritage. She was born in Poland and spent the first four years of her life there before being adopted and moving to the United States, she said. The four black stripes at the bottom of the dress’s red skirt symbolize those four years in Poland.

Wacholtz and three other Webster County 4-H’ers will be taking their innovative designs to exhibit at the Iowa State Fair later this summer — Bianca Aquino, of the Johnson Jaguars; Lilly Johnson, of the Elkhorn Eagles; and Amelia Rake, of the Douglas Dreamers.

Wacholtz is really looking forward to showing off her Polish folk dress at the State Fair next month.

-Messenger photo by Britt Kudla
Sylvia Wacholtz, of C/C Sidekicks, models her homemade Polish dress during the 4-H fashion show on Wednesday at the Webster Fairgrounds

“It’s really exciting,” she said.

Johnson, 17, spent several days and about a dozen rolls of Duct Tape crafting a prom dress made entirely out of Duct Tape.

“I sold out Hobby Lobby’s black Duct Tape and had to get some from Walmart and Bomgaar’s too,” she said.

Johnson said she remembered a trend when she was younger where people would make all kinds of accessories and other things out of Duct Tape and she thought it might be fun to make a dress out of the material. In researching the idea, she also learned that the Duct Tape brand sponsors a scholarship for students who make dresses out of the tape and she plans to enter the dress for that scholarship as well.

“I spent over $60 on all the Duct Tape,” Johnson said. “But if you think about it, some people spend like hundreds of dollars on a prom dress, so $60 is just a fraction of the cost.””

-Messenger photo by Britt Kudla
Amelia Rake, of Douglas Dreamers, models her hand embroidered jeans during the 4-H fashion show on Wednesday

She said she doesn’t really plan on wearing the dress to an actual school dance.

“It’s kind of heavy and it’s kind of hot,” she said.

Rake, 18, was inspired by her favorite song, “Cherry Bomb” by The Runaways, when she created her upcycled bluejeans with hand-embroidered cherries running up and down the right pant leg.

“I’m obsessed with the song and cherry print is very cute,” Rake said. “And cherry is very loud, it’s very girly and red is one of my favorite colors.”

She said initially, she originally painted cherries onto the jeans, but the paint kept coming out in the wash and she grew tired of repainting the design. Instead, she turned to a needle and some embroidery thread and spent the next three months hand-embroidering the cherries.

“Whenever I had downtime, I was embroidering — in class, at home, during my free periods,” Rake said. “I just spent months hand-embroidering all these cherries.”

In total, there are 19 pairs of cherries on the jeans. On the runway, Rake paired the jeans with a vintage Runaways T-shirt, cherry jewelry and cherry-red lipstick.