[Interview] Wes Jenkins - Her Universe Fashion Show Judges Winner

[00:00:10] I'm Jenna with Portrait of a Fangirl and I'm here today with the Judges Winner of the Her Universe Fashion Show. Wes, hi Wes, how are you? I'm doing good. Congratulations on your win. Thank you. Can you tell me a little bit about your winning design?

[00:00:22] Well it is inspired by my introduction to Barbie when I was really young. My mom had a lot of Barbie clothes and I found all her cases of Barbie clothes when I was little and I was just so fascinated by all these tiny little clothes.

[00:00:39] You're used to being the smallest thing in the room and these were even smaller. And I wanted to know how they came to be and how they were created and ultimately that kind

[00:00:49] of spurred my interest and I learned how to sew, learned how to make clothes and went to school for costume design. And now at the show you mentioned that there were over 200 pieces of Barbie clothes so long. There's almost 600. Oh my goodness. Okay. Yeah. That's even.

[00:01:08] I didn't keep count while I was doing it. I actually took pictures of everything flat and I had to go back on my iPad and like circle each one to keep count of it because it was impossible when I was doing it to count it.

[00:01:24] I would get lost every time. Did you have a certain layout in mind or did you kind of just go with what felt right when you were putting out the pieces?

[00:01:30] My only rule really was that the bodice and sleeves had to be light pink and then the skirt had to ombre from light to dark. So each, I laid out the front panel and each of the back panel separately and tried to keep

[00:01:46] the kind of percentage of darkest medium light pink the same on each one. Wow. And you also mentioned at the show that each of these pieces were second hand pieces. Yeah. So this is my friend, but some of them are gents, childhood Barbie doll clothes and some

[00:02:03] of them are my moms. That is so sweet. What did your mom think of the design? She's thrilled. She hasn't seen it in real life ever, but yeah, she was all about it. She asked all her friends. She got some people to send me some other stuff. Yeah.

[00:02:23] That's so sweet. Yeah, it was an effort, a community effort. Can you take me through the entire process from your application through last night? Well I had not anticipated applying until I heard that Mattel was sponsoring the show and I was like, I have to do this.

[00:02:40] I have a story to tell that makes sense if Mattel's going to sponsor the show. So I knew pretty quickly that I wanted to do something using Barbie clothes. I just wasn't sure what it was.

[00:02:51] So I kind of percolated for a day or two and then this was the first thing I sketched and I was like, I'm good with this. It's gorgeous. It's really a work of art. Thank you.

[00:03:03] How did it feel for you when you were announced as the winner last night? A little surreal. A little surreal. It was a very nice feeling. I was surprised but I'm excited because I'm really looking forward to working

[00:03:17] with Hot Topic, her universe over the next year to see what we can do. And something I really love is that you have your matching N Ken Blazer. Can you show N Ken? Did you design this as well? I made this last week. Yeah, yeah.

[00:03:34] I pulled the first all nighter I've done in years Saturday night and I was done at about 6 a.m. on Sunday because I always forget it takes about 40 hours to make a tailored suit jacket.

[00:03:48] Was it a last minute idea that popped into your head or did you kind of always have an idea? I wanted a pink blazer for this. When I did the show in 2019, I bought a purple suit off of Amazon and I always kind of regretted

[00:04:02] that I didn't do something for myself. And so I was like, I got to do at least one piece so I'm going to make a blazer. I can do it. I know what I'm doing. But I always forget how long it takes.

[00:04:13] And so really had to like book it right at the end to get it done. Well Wes, we thank you very much for talking with us today and congratulations on your win.