Costume Drama fashion show back to benefit ACT

Caitie Sellers, an Asheville jewelry designer, has never made a dress before.

The argument could be made that she still hasn’t made a dress — even though a model will wear her ambitious apparel on the runway when “Costume Drama: A Fashion Show” returns July 8.

It’s more wearable sculpture than frivolous frock: Sellers spent more than 60 hours creating the piece, “Arabesque Dress,” made with an intricate soldered copper bodice, a steel skeleton skirt, wireless LED lights (requiring 38 batteries), as well as delicate, hand-cut tissue paper.

Sellers’ fashion-design debut is part of a weeklong fundraiser — dubbed Dramarama — for the almost 70-year-old Asheville Community Theatre. The concept, which includes a variety show, karaoke, trivia and a movie sing along, raised $30,000 for the arts nonprofit last year.

Organizers with the Asheville Community Theatre are hoping to raise $40,000 during the week. “We try to keep our ticket prices affordable throughout the season,” said managing director Susan Harper. “The additional fundraising helps us to do just that, while still being able to produce the types of shows we love to stage and our audiences love to see.”

“Costume Drama: A Fashion Show” was one of the most successful in the event series, with standing-room-only attendance at the Renaissance Hotel (the event will be hosted by the theater on Walnut Street this year), said Jenny Bunn, head of marketing for ACT.

This year’s show includes more designers — Bunn said 29 local artists have signed up — with many designers returning for a second year. “Costume Drama” continues to be an unconventional fashion show; the contest categories all feature nontraditional materials. Other than the paper category, “Costume Drama” 2013 presents a new set of challenges: designers must create wearable art using light, paper, elements of nature or upcylced/recycled materials.

Audience members vote on designers by donating to ACT; one dollar equals one vote.

“We were absolutely blown away by the fashion show last year,” Bunn said. They sold 180 tickets in advance, but were “completely swarmed” by people buying tickets before the show, a crowd of 350, all told.

For Bunn, the creativity — from a slinky gown made entirely of unrolled VHS tape, to cute cocktail dresses made of cocktail umbrellas — on display was responsible for the “a real palatable excitement and that made people want to participate.”

“I went to the show last year,” said Sellers. “It was so good and a lot of fun. I helped a friend make a flower dress, so I got to be involved sort of on the side,” she said.

Sellers, who participated in the show last year, said ironwork, art deco forms and Islamic tile work inspired this year’s piece. In the winter, Sellers will begin an artist residency at the Houston Center of Contemporary Craft for nine months. “With the jewelry residency, I am about to get super-absorbed in small things and a particular path,” she noted.

And it turns out the process of making the dress was similar to her approach to metalworking.

“I am using exactly the same techniques, but much on a bigger scale,” Sellers said. “It was kind of like making a giant necklace or a piece of jewelry.”

She also create a new accessory — a tiara — that might appear in her jewelry line, she added, and the process empowered Sellers to take on larger metal sculpture in the future. More information about the program is available on the web site at indoorlite.