Project Runway - Swedish Style

In the summer drought of TV viewing I'm always happy to see Lifetime's Project Runway start a new season. If you're not familiar with the show, about ten young designers gather in New York to design and sew--in a few cases some outlandish--fashions that hopefully will be featured in major fashion magazines and worn by people who get noticed. Each one hoping to hear Heidi Klum, the show's hostess, say "You're in." to that challenge "In fashion, one day you're in, one day you're out." A couple of weeks ago their challenge was to make something wearable out of candy from a candy shop. So you had models strutting the runway dressed in twizzle sticks, hard candy and jelly beans! It got me thinking about this fabulous ceramics exhibition that I saw at Sofiero Palace and Gardens in southern Sweden last year. Called "Cocktail Couture", the exhibit by artist Agneta Spangberg featured beautiful dresses made of ceramic pieces. Here's some other examples:

In addition to the cocktail dresses, the exhibit displayed a wonderful collection of more traditional ceramic pieces such as plates, plaques, and vases:

To get to the ceramics exhibit you walked though the Palace Gardens. Here's the semi-wild Mediterranean garden:

The sunken garden and steps leading down to the garden. Note the living monogram:

A green mossy passageway to the exhibit:

And finally Sofiero Palace, the summer home of Sweden's royal family earlier in the century and a wall plaque of young Princess Margarette who was instrumental in designing the garden with her husband while managing a large young family.

(Photos: Sofiero Palace and Gardens at Helsingborg, Sweden--August 2011)