Buffalo State's Morgan Walsh on her "Cottonelle" Dress

I have been enamored with fashion design, and the industry itself, since before I can remember. My mother is one of my biggest influences: she taught me how to sew when I was in 4th grade, and has made her own clothing as well as some pretty impressive Halloween custumes over the past 25 years that have definitely inspired my passion for design and the arts. It takes a lot of creative juices to come up with original Halloween costumes for 5 kids, year after year! I have dreamt and sketched and sewn, but I never imagined that I would have the opportunity to share one of my own designs, on the same runway as some of my biggest influences in the fashion industry. On September 7th, 2013, that dream became reality.

A month prior to the big day, I was approached by a friend about this opportunity with Cottonelle to create a dress, made entirely out of toilet paper, to showcase at NYFW. I could not pass this up, as crazy as it may have seemed. That day I submitted 3 of my sketches to Cottonelle, and the following day I was informed that they chose one of MY designs, and that I would have 3 rather large boxes of toilet paper on my doorstep the following day. I immediately got to work using trial and error to decide what was the best way to create my fabric and pattern for the dress. A few weeks, 3 fittings, and about 20-23 rolls of toilet paper later, the dress was complete and I was on my way to NYFW to watch Cait Beauchanie, my "Mommy Model", strut her stuff down the runway in MY creation. Not only was my design showcased at fashion week, but my sketch was also wrapped around the outside of trailers at Lincoln Center to promote Cottonelle's Let's Talk Bums Campaign!

This whole experience was unbelievable, kind of dream like to be honest. I am still not exactly sure whether I should laugh, cry, or do a few celebratory cartwheels, but I am so excited and honored to share my hard work with everyone and hopefully more adventures down the road!

Morgan Walsh is a student at Buffalo State. The dress is currently on view at the Burchfield Penney.

Read more in the Buffalo News.