Producers attending Crop Production Week in Saskatoon Jan. 8 were treated to a fashion event.
Syngenta sponsored the creation of two designer dresses using pulse crops. Two clothing design students created cocktail dresses using peas, beans, lentils and chickpeas to adorn the cloth garments.
Andrea McConnell of Syngenta said the use of pulse crops in clothing isn’t likely a trend that will catch on, but it creates interest in the crops and that, too, adds value to the industry.
“It was a marketing idea we think people will notice,” she said.
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Designer and dressmaker Aden Whalen grew up on a farm at Moose Jaw and has long had an interest in fashion and sewing and a working knowledge of pulses.
“But I never imagined gluing them to a dress like beads. But I am very happy with the outcome,” she said about her creation.
“I don’t know that I will make a habit of it, but it was a great project that gets you thinking about working outside your comfort zone. But personally, I’m comfortable with pulse crops,” she said of her creation that used beans in a flower motif, resembling the white flowers of some other pulse plants.
Angelica Crossman also created a dress with pulse crops, but hers went beyond ornamentation. The design student covered nearly every available surface of the dress in pulses.
Paired lines of green field peas were set in a sea of lentils. Desi chickpeas in amber and brown colours and yellow peas highlighted the swirling patterns of peas and created lines that mimicked the tendrils of the pea plants from which they grew.
Twin sister Jennifer Crossman, a commerce student from the University of Saskatchewan, modeled the dress, which took two days to create.
“It’s a bit heavy and I can’t sit down too easily without risking dropping the crop on the floor. But it is beautiful,” she said.
Whalen’s sister, Bryde, acted as her model.
“This dress I could see myself going out in. At first you think these might be beads or seashells of some kind. They’re really food. I wouldn’t eat them with the glue though,” she said.
The models found their runways where they could during the Pulse Days meetings and at the Crop Production Show.
Bryde Whelan said the dresses stood out.
“This isn’t normally what you see for clothes at a farm show. Nobody is going to miss the fact that we are here,” she said.
