Having been a judge for Portland Fashion Week's emerging designer competition for all of its three years running, I can honestly say that this year's was the most difficult and longest deliberation. It was a long night altogether, frankly. After missing out on dinner (unless you count one of those store-bought baked squares of tofu) to give the organizers of the event the respect of honoring my 7:30 pm call time, the crowd was made to wait... and wait... for a show that did not even get going until after 9:30, apparently due to some malfunctioning with the projector. They might have gotten away with it if we had been able to drink, but there was no alcohol allowed in the show space. You cannot make people sit and wait that long without access to cocktails. That's Party Planning 101. Just announce the goddamn designer on a microphone! So, off to a rocky start. I think this photo of the mayor and PFW Executive Producer Prasenjit Tito Chowdhury (or just "Tito," as the mayor called him in his rather cringe-inducing opening remarks) unwrapping the recycled plastic-covered runway kind of summarizes the moment:

But we came to see a new crop of emerging designers, and that's what we finally saw. Hop over to MOD for a treatise on the top contenders of the evening.