February 17, 2015

Four teams of undergraduate Fashion Design students recently presented their inventive dress designs to SCA, a global hygiene products company. SCA challenged students to design and construct dresses made entirely from the company’s incontinence care products and materials. The unique design challenge is part of SCA’s aim to help educate people and open a public dialogue about incontinence. The winning dresses will be on display at the SCA Pavilion at the Volvo Ocean Race in Newport, RI this May, where SCA has entered the first all-female team to sail the race in more than a decade, and where more than 200,000 people are expected to visit. In addition to being displayed at the SCA Pavilion, the winning dress designs will also be showcased in SCA’s Philadelphia headquarters in the Cira Centre.

At the Feb. 4 unveiling of the four dresses, which were created by students in Professor Genevieve Dion’s Fashion Design I class, SCA judges spoke of how well the designs captured femininity, strength, beauty and quality of life. Initially, they planned to choose one winner to receive $500, but after seeing the raw materials transformed into four intricate designs they selected two winning teams, which received $1,000 each, and two runner-up teams receiving $250 each. Read coverage of the design competition at NBC Philadelphia and Technical.ly Philly.