Local designer Vanessa Froehling has denim on the brain. Stonewashed, herringbone print, chambray, stretch and black denim, to be sure.

In her home studio, Froehling flips through hangers of designs, including sailor-style high-waisted women’s shorts, a men’s blazer and a women’s jumpsuit.

“It’s something that’s in everyone’s closet and it will never go out of style,” says Froehling of the French-born fabric (denim’s etymology comes from “de Nîmes,” the French town where Levis Strauss first procured the tough cotton twill for your 501s). But, she adds, “people are stuck on what denim can do.”

The line is called Carpe Denim and it’s Froehling’s entry into FashioNXT (self-described as “Portland’s Official Fashion Week”) — not to be confused with Portland Fashion Week — three days and nights of runway shows in early October. She will present Carpe Denim in the UpNXT competition, the “emerging designers accelerator,” alongside four other Pacific Northwest designers the evening of Oct. 5.

The fashion week has a cozy relationship with Project Runway, the fashion-designer reality show running since 2004, and, in fact, two of the judges assessing the competition are Seth Aaron (winner of Project Runway season 7) and Michelle Lesniak (winner of season 11).

In 2015, Froehling applied to both Portland Fashion Week and FashioNXT, but was only accepted by the former that time. She says auditioning in front of the FashioNXT judges was intimidating.

“My nerves were like, ‘What do I do with my hands?’” Froehling says, shaking her hands by her sides and laughing. The judges were tough, she recalls, and they recommended that she develop the marketability and cohesion of her line.

Over the past year, she took their advice to heart and decided she would try out again, this time with a denim ready-to-wear line, a departure from the couture gowns that have distinguished her style. She took inspiration from the city — recalling watching the denizens of Portland walk by, falling in love with their street-wear style — and the layers of people, buildings and traffic.

Eight jean looks — five for women and three for men — will walk the runway, but rest assured, this will be no **** of Canadian tuxedos. Although denim is the common thread, the designs feature smart juxtapositions against black leather and a colorful textile that looks like a cross between gas puddles and graffiti.

The self-taught designer has also developed several innovative details: a woman’s denim peplum jacket that unzips at the waist, transforming it into a more casual cropped jacket; women’s stretch leather pants that zip open at the knee, a nod to ripped jeans; and a men’s chambray shirt with the illusion of a double collar creating a fresh origami effect.

This summer, the judges welcomed Froehling on the FashioNXT train.

Froehling says one judge told her that she’s the first designer to return the following year to try out again after being rejected.

“It’s the highest fashion production in Oregon,” she says.

The winner will be announced at the after-party Oct. 5, and the prize package secures a spot for the designer in the main runway show in 2017 and includes business mentorships, feature stories inPortland Monthly and Portland Mercury, and a strategic marketing course at Portland Fashion Institute.Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/short-formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/red-carpet-celebrity-dresses

I have on a pearl necklace, the beads like cabbage
stonewashed by sun

and sitting upon this veranda I
watch wind feather a hilltop where your sister
lost her virginity to a man while she was but a girl –
the sort that marries nothing besides memories.

She would wear what I do if I remember correctly.
Your sister had taped posters on her wall
of which she would stay up late to kiss goodnight –

I heard their rustle
through the plaster, through your hair covering my
neck when you hid me next door
pouring my secretions onto your mattress.

Somehow, she was younger and older than you:
chopsticks in her whiskers twice your age
**** a scalp whose hardly brushed one’s headboard.

You and I, on hiatus
and she and I were always clean –

skimming our knees together while you had another
girl in the shower-stall, who cried when
she ate a sandwich
or abbreviated the name I wished never would end.

In the valley, the willows cut a dress your sister would
wear with my pearl necklace, and
I think I will marry my memories, too, if not you.

how many emptied cups of coffee?

how many crumpled papers littering around?

how many broken bottles of beer?

how many cigarette stubs flattened on the ground?

how many stonewashed mornings?

how many sleepless nights, empty and dull?

how many will it take to forget you?

tell me, how many?

Buddha was the broken hourglass
that spilled seconds across my backyard.
Mother Earth scolded him for his slipup,
so I smoothed her over with my minute hands.
She told me that he who skips an interval
needs to double back his ticks
so, grain by grain, tick by tock.
She rewound my hands to round out
the stonewashed garden that was being fabricated.
So I steadily swept shards of seconds
under the rugged rug of ill will.
I riddled ripples within her granular skin,
skidded stones across her carved clock
face fitting ****** features together like cogs.
Buddha shook the soil off
and fixed his gaze on my clockwork.
He explained that patience is key
if one wants to harvest his feast.
Before the goods go about,
pivots and rivets need to tie together.
Mother Earth collected her thoughts
and agreed with his concept.
I finished my work, stepped back,
admiring the hourglass I rebuilt.

They all smoked in the garden
that night. Inhaling the chemicals,
the manic whirr in the lungs
of something toxic. Everybody there
wanted a piece. Their own segment
of you to cup in their hands,
taste whenever they pleased
as if you were red wine.
They wore woolly shirts
and stonewashed jeans. Bare feet.
Looking at you, a valuable gift
up for grabs. Voice like liquid gold.
Wishing you’d pick them
over the others, point a finger,
claim your prize. You had a hold
on their heartstrings and didn’t know it.
They said you were unattainable,
that you were hidden behind glass
and couldn’t be touched. Anger bubbled
between them, red kettle-hot.
Raised voices papercut the air.
I could understand.
You were glorious, untarnished.
A cleaner mind and cleaner arteries.
It was a rare and confusing thing
for them. Blonde hair, blue eyes
made their thoughts turn to flour.
You were sweet when all
they knew was acidic,
like a chunk of lemon
under the tongue.
As they squabbled in silence
we spoke. And still
they continued to smoke.

I am under a rusting fountain smoldering
Smoldering, mold, brownish residue
That felt your casual heartbreak yesterday
And last week
And every year
You used to climb the tree over there and look up into a stonewashed autumn sky
When there were no more books to read
You lost your first tooth in his neighbor
All the trees you named after characters from an epic story
That you left behind when you turned 12
Along with your hopes of success as a lone wolf or warrior

You called me into your thoughts just again this morning
I wriggled inside the room trying to get you to notice me
But your body was still and focused, no longer lacking

There was a timeout and a fear of rabid animals
There were ideas about how to deal with terrorists on your home turf
There was a dead snake in the woodpile
There were tiny embroidered cherry blossoms in heaps of laundry for your dolls
There were ugly apples falling onto the deck in September

I can’t help you anymore
Despite my admiration for how you’ve changed
Drop the dead leaves back onto the undergrowth for someone else to pick up

True Freedom - is not caring, then you can be yourself.. perfect homeostasis and then you meet yourself. Once the pain and healing has commenced and you can just be... but not lazy be, rather be progressively wanting and thirsting for more knowledge and hungering for the type of profound human spirit connection that is simply praised and written about amongst the ions of time... be the illusion that continues to protrude as an immovable and unstoppable being..

Being you for who you are now, being here now and allowing somehow the alternative and negative particles to deflect off of you like a magnetic field of holy grail.

To where the greatest pain would not Be, rather Not to Be.... that is the one and only question for the beyond that I ponder and abscond and venture away from thee until that almighty question of eternity comes upon me...

Lying at my feet right up until the day we meet is and obtusely arranged calligraphy of three

And it reads like the dough that it kneads so roughly and obscene like non-stonewashed jeans until they gleam and beam like a ufo stream up into outer space please take me away from this place.

where are all of these women
who wear stonewashed jeans
and buy air plants
for their Scandinavian apartments