Fanshawe grad makes a splash in purse design contest

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This summer, Crystal Light held a contest to see which young Canadian fashion designer could create the hottest summer handbag. Jennifer Burland, a 2009 grad from Fanshawe's Fashion Design program, stepped up to the challenge.

The Crystal Light Designer Purse Challenge invited fashion students from across the country to create the "ultimate handbag" based on creativity, uniqueness and feasibility of design. Designers also had to look to flavours of Crystal Light — a fruity-flavoured powdered beverage mix — for inspiration.

"I chose Tangerine Grapefruit," Burland said. "The purse challenge required you to design a purse that was fashion-forward, functional, represented the flavour you chose, and could carry a water bottle and three Crystal Light single packs."

After her initial design was selected by judges as one of the top eight, Burland, along with the seven other top designers, headed to Ryerson University in Toronto to make her sketch a reality. With a day and a half in a lab on the Ryerson campus, she whipped up a gorgeous handbag that folds into a studded clutch using blocks of bright-coloured stingray leather.

Models strutted their stuff with the handbags at a June fashion show at Toronto's Design Exchange. Canadian supermodel Stacey McKenzie was one of the judges at the fashion show. According to Burland, McKenzie said her purse was "really fashionforward and trendy for the summer." She added the judges also liked that the purse could transform from handbag to clutch.

Burland's design was selected to be one of the top four designs, and from there the winner of the contest was open for fans to decide. The Crystal Light Facebook page had a picture of each purse, and fans voted on one they'd want for summer.

At this point, the contest "became a different game," said Burland. "As soon as it went on Facebook, it became more of a commercial publicity kind of thing. It was still great to be a part of, but it would have been nice if (the winner were selected) based more on design, like how the top four were chosen. As soon as it got on Facebook, it kind of felt more like a popularity contest — how many votes you get."

Though she didn't end up taking home the $5,000 grand prize, "It was a good experience," she said. "The beginning part was really fun." Burland said she comes away from the contest having learned a lot; the feedback from the judges throughout the contest has helped her understand more about what consumers like.

Burland's passion for fashion extends far beyond the contest; after graduating from the Fashion Design program at Fanshawe in 2009, she worked at Super Cool Kids' Clothing in Toronto as a Junior Technical Developer until late August. Now she's headed off to Seattle to take up styling and blogging full-time.

Even though she's moving to the States, Burland said she'll always be a Canadian designer. "I'm still going to try to be Toronto-bound a lot, fashion-wise, and also because I have family here. I'm a strong believer in supporting fashion where you're from. A lot of Canadian fashion designers tend to go to New York or bigger places because they feel they'll be more successful. (It makes it really hard) for us to establish a reputation (here)."

Check out Burland's fashion blog at guise.ca. She also does the fashion blogging at newpulpcards.com.