OLE, YULIE!

The West 18th Street Fashion Show is one of the highlights of the summer as 18 young, talented fashion designers showcase their runway collections to a street packed audience in the Crossroads Art District in downtown Kansas City. The crowd eagerly gathered June 11 to see this year's collections based on the theme, Summer in Spain. OLE! The show did not disappoint. Each fashion collection was a distinctive expression from each of the designers. One of the designers, Yulie Urano , was a newcomer to the show. When talking to Yulie, she was very pleased with her designs and found the process exhausting but extremely energizing. As a recent graduate of the Kansas City Art Institute in fiber arts, Yulie was concentrating on her senior thesis until the middle of May. Once graduated, Yulie was able to turn her attention to creating her knitwear collection, showcasing her passion for fashion. The knitting needles were flying as the mid-June deadline approached. When asked what inspired her designs, Yulie said it was the bold bright colors and feminine aspects of Spain. She described her collection as "fun, feminine with an unconventional twist." That is definitely a good description as Yulie used large twisted yarn to create all of her pieces. She made the long strips of thick yarn on a knitting machine and then knit each fashion piece herself. The bright colored yarns and garments were punctuated with contrasting colored fashion tights from Foot Traffic , creating an invigorating knitwear collection, as seen in this great photo by Tiffany Matson . When asked how she benefited from this show, she said that it gave her the opportunity to get her name out there, she was able to meet a lot of talented designers, and it was just a great venue for celebrating the incredible creative talent in the Kansas City community. Julie recently received a well-deserved grant to attend Central St. Martin in London later this summer to continue her education in experimental knitwear design. NICE KNITS, YULIE!