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New Hampshire Fashion Designers Make 'Olympic Sprint' To Rio

Click photos for slideshow.

For the last few months, Laura McCarthy has been preparing to put a lifetime of training on display before an international audience in Rio de Janeiro—home of this year’s summer Olympics.  No, McCarthy is not an athlete. She’s a fashion designer. And today – a collaboration she’s been working on for months will be draped on a Brazilian model, and strutted down a runway in Rio.

It all started when a San Francisco fashion show producer told a Brazilian fashion show producer to check out some colorful dresses made in an unlikely place: New Hampshire. That’s when Laura McCarthy and collaborator, HarryUmengot the invitation to show their new collection on theTeatroFashion Mall runway in Rio on day four of the summer Olympics.

Lately, McCarthy says, she’s been pulling 12 hour days.

The Olympic Circus Fashion Show is put on by a company called Moda-Couture. It’s not officially part of the Olympics. But the promise to an Olympic games host country is innumerable tourists with deep pocketbooks: hotels, shops, restaurants, and performers, and yes, even fashion designers are eager to capitalize on all the action.

Umen says he hopes  this trip to Rio can help him and McCarthy launch their collaboration as a commercial line of clothing.

The collaboration works like this. Umen designs the prints and orders the fabric. McCarthy designs and sews the clothes. For some items, the pattern on the fabric comes from one of Umen’s photographs, manipulated on a computer and printed on massive industrial printers.  

Copyright 2021 New Hampshire Public Radio. To see more, visit New Hampshire Public Radio.

Fabric designer, Harry Umen, photographs Hailey Boczar modelling a dress.
Emily Corwin / NHPR
/
NHPR
Fabric designer, Harry Umen, photographs Hailey Boczar modelling a dress.
Laura McCarthy makes adjustments to a dress modeled by Hailey Boczar
Emily Corwin / NHPR
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NHPR
Laura McCarthy makes adjustments to a dress modeled by Hailey Boczar
Harry Umen used his still life photograph, above, to create the fabric for items in the collection.
Harry Umen /
Harry Umen used his still life photograph, above, to create the fabric for items in the collection.
Umen poses with a neoprene fabric he designed.
Emily Corwin / NHPR
/
NHPR
Umen poses with a neoprene fabric he designed.

Emily Corwin reported investigative stories for VPR until August 2020. In 2019, Emily was part of a two-newsroom team which revealed that patterns of inadequate care at Vermont's eldercare facilities had led to indignities, injuries, and deaths. The consequent series, "Worse for Care," won a national Edward R. Murrow award for investigative reporting, and placed second for a 2019 IRE Award. Her work editing VPR's podcast JOLTED, about an averted school shooting, and reporting NHPR's podcast Supervision, about one man's transition home from prison, made her a finalist for a Livingston Award in 2019 and 2020. Emily was also a regular reporter and producer on Brave Little State, helping the podcast earn a National Edward R. Murrow Award for its work in 2020. When she's not working, she enjoys cross country skiing and biking.
Emily Corwin
Emily Corwin covers New Hampshire news, and reports on the state's criminal justice system. She's also one of eight dedicated reporters with the New England News Collaborative, a consortium of public media newsrooms across New England.
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