{"id":90793,"date":"2025-07-25T07:30:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T07:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/90793\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T07:30:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T07:30:12","slug":"geek-couture-takes-the-runway-with-nessarose-as-judge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/90793\/","title":{"rendered":"Geek Couture takes the runway, with Nessarose as judge"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Designers Lynleigh Sato and Caitlin Beards won at Her Universe Fashion Show. (Photo by Chris Stone\/Times of San Diego)<\/p>\n

Thousands packed a vast ballroom Thursday at the Manchester Grand Hyatt, treated to the trailer of \u201cWicked: For Good,\u201d the Oz-franchise sequel coming in late November.<\/p>\n

But the Seaport Ballroom throng of Comic-Con-goers nerded out on something else: Geek Couture.<\/p>\n

The 11th annual Her Universe Fashion Show<\/a> Presented by Universal saw 25 finalists glamp down a runway under the theme \u201cDefying Fashion: Fashion That Defies Expectations.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Judges Choice award went to \u201cCouture of the Dead\u201d designed by Caitlin Beards, inspired by \u201cThe Mummy\u201d of 1999. And the Audience Choice award went to \u201cPoppy\u2019s Hues of Happiness\u201d designed by Lynleigh Sato, inspired by Dreamworks\u2019 \u201cTrolls.\u201d<\/p>\n

Winners took home $2,000 each and were offered the opportunity to design a fashion collection with Her Universe!<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Actress Marissa Bode, recognized as a disability rights advocate \u2014 and who portrayed Nessarose in \u201cWicked\u201d \u2014 was among the judges.<\/p>\n

Variety magazine senior editor Marc Malkin joined this year\u2019s panel for the first time with returning judges Robin Motts, SVP of Hot Topic Merchandising, and the 2024 Her Universe Fashion Show winners, Wes Jenkins and Candice Miller.<\/p>\n

Show director for his third consecutive year was award-winning director, writer and producer Jeremy Merrifield. <\/p>\n

Videos showed designers\u2019 fabrics, techniques and inspirations \u2014and their pets (mostly cats), sparking affectionate sighs from the audience.<\/p>\n

All outfits were inspired by Universal Pictures and DreamWorks Animation franchises. Other movies represented included \u201cET,\u201d \u201cJurassic Park,\u201d \u201cPsycho\u201d and NBC-Universals\u2019 \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d (two costumes).<\/p>\n

Her Universe founder Ashley Eckstein (voice of \u201cStar Wars\u2019\u201d Ahsoka Tano) and Broadway star Michael James Scott (The Genie in Disney\u2019s Aladdin on Broadway) co-hosted for the third year.<\/p>\n

The duo also are set to host the \u201cHer Universe Fashion Show After Party\u201d on from 10-11 a.m. Friday at the Neil Morgan Auditorium of the San Diego Central Library during a live taping of their newly announced podcast HypeFriend!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Designers Lynleigh Sato and Caitlin Beards won at Her Universe Fashion Show. (Photo by Chris Stone\/Times of San…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":90794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,60373,60374,60375,3549,7264,67,586,132,5230,184,68,2969,17498],"class_list":{"0":"post-90793","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-dreamworks","12":"tag-fashion-show","13":"tag-manchester-grand-hyatt","14":"tag-san-diego","15":"tag-sandiego","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-universal-pictures","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-usa","23":"tag-wicked"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114912704845073089","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}