Food and fashion collide at Future Tenant

The phrase “eat me” takes on a whole new connotation when you’re wearing a marshmallow minidress or a pair of kale pants. “EAT ME Fashion Show”

Future Tenant

819 Penn Ave.

10 p.m. (Doors open at 9:30 p.m.)

(412) 325-7037

Tickets $15

The phrase “eat me” takes on a whole new connotation when you’re wearing a marshmallow minidress or a pair of kale pants.

Tomorrow night, Future Tenant will serve up flavorful fashion made out of food at its EAT ME Fashion Show, featuring five individual designers and four organizations who each created their own edible garment.

“This is the first time I’ve made a fashion design with food and it’s sticky. It’s really sticky,” said Jill Larson, independent curator and designer of the marshmallow dress.

As a visual artist, Larson has been incorporating edibles into her work for about a decade. She was the curator for the current exhibit at Future Tenant: EAT ME, which featured art pieces made of food. So when Orvokki Halme, co-executive director of Future Tenant, cooked up the idea to have a fashion show during Pittsburgh’s Fashion Week, she got in touch with Larson and they decided food was the perfect medium.

“We thought it would be fun to … sort of piggy back on Pittsburgh Fashion Week, kind of do a more art version of the runway show,” Halme said.

Halme will participate on behalf of Future Tenant. She and Co-executive Director Laura Zorch will craft a vest from cornhusks and pants made out of kale, a form of cabbage, for the show. They’ve been planning since the summer, but they haven’t been able to assemble everything early due to the perishable nature of their materials.

Halme explains that most of the designers have waited until the last minute to avoid losing their garments to the perils of rotting, mold and vermin. But, this means that the trial-and-error process of things like kale pants can be extremely difficult.

“Sometimes when I get frustrated, I find myself eating my design,” Larson said.

Food is a difficult material and often difficult to use on its own. Participants can opt to use fabric — for example, Halme and Zorch glued the kale to a pair of long underwear — but the fabric can’t be visible. Larson’s frustrations might be all the greater considering there will be nothing between her model, Kate Little, and the marshmallows.

“So having never worked with marshmallows before other than roasting them over a fire, I didn’t anticipate that all the goo inside them wants to come out … My model, Kate, is going to be sticky,” Larson said.

But, Little, who will also model the dress for Quantum Theater, isn’t concerned about stickiness. She’s more worried about the obvious difficulty of wearing something made from food.

“I think it would probably have to be handled more delicately as not to harm the article of clothing. I’m afraid food might not be as resilient as other materials. That’s my biggest concern. I don’t know if it’s possible to rip a dress of marshmallows, but I think it must be possible,” she said.

Once the show is done, models are allowed to walk around in their delectable dresses. Little muses that she might have friends trying to steal bites of her ensemble and even she admits she might be tempted to nibble.

“I have a sweet tooth. Unless there’s a whole lot of toxic glue on my dress, I’ll be tempted to eat it,” she said, adding that she wouldn’t munch without permission because she’d hate to “compromise the art.”

The night of the actual show, the designers will be in a flurry backstage to put their models in the delicate fashions. Brett James Salon will do the models’ makeup and hair. Many designers will share models and Halme said only one designer thus far had requested food be used in his or her hairstyle.

After the show, cocktails and delectable edibles will be served. But don’t expect any of this to be normal fare. Megan Gillis will provide cupcakes shaped like women’s breasts and the other munchies will have similar themes to them.

“The food that will be served will be…provocative as well,” Halme said.

From people wearing food to food shaped like people, the EAT ME fashion show caters to foodies and fashionistas alike.