Was your prom dress made out of fabric or duct tape? Well for 18-year-old Karla Torres, she designed a prom dress made entirely out of the super adhesive, fix it all tape.
The Boyle Heights native won a $10,000 scholarship from the "Stuck at Prom" scholarship contest sponsored by the trademarked brand Duck Tape. She competed against five other teen contestants for votes in the competition's online poll.
Her Marie Antoinette-style prom dress was inspired by the 18th-century French art Karla saw on a field trip to the J. Paul Getty Museum. The finished dress took over 120 hours to make and consisted of 14 rolls of duct tape.
In an interview with the LA Times, Karla says, "Tape is so rigid and you can’t move it like fabric,” Torres said. “It was really challenging making it all come together.”
Karla plans on using her scholarship money to help pay for college, where she will attend California State University Fullerton, starting in August. The first thing she will get? "I really want a new laptop because the old one I have is a little rusty and really slow," she told the Times. She plans on studying business marketing with a focus in the fashion industry with the hopes that her win will help her get into her field.
Ashley Luke, the senior project manager at Shurtape Technologies, the marketer for the Duck Tape brand, said in a statement "... the competition was high, but Karla... really exemplified how an ordinary material, like Duck Tape, can be transformed into artful attire."
Karla's dress will be displayed at the Duck Tape headquarters in Ohio with past winners.