High heels and taffeta, not so much. But if there’s one thing we know on the West Coast, it’s denim.

That couldn’t have been more clear than it was at the LG Denim DIY, a contest to find the country’s best under-25 jeans designer that had its regional semifinals at Sears downtown on March 5.

Fifteen aspiring local designers watched models strut down the runway wearing their denim creations, and the range of looks—from laid-back “boyfriend” styles to glam, high-waisted numbers—were a testament to the many ways we wear our blues out here.

Theodora “Dora” Lee, a Kwantlen Polytechnic University fashion-program student, nabbed top prize for the Western Canada region, and her sleek black jeans will now head to an end-of-month showdown against Quebec and Ontario winners. The national winner will take home a $5,000 fashion endowment and see his or her jeans sold in the collection of Sears’ Nevada line when it relaunches in 2010. In a separate contest, the public can vote for their favourite pair of jeans nationally at lg.ca/denimdiy until the end of March; the winner of that competition takes home a LCD TV.

Lee’s winning cigarette-slim black jeans were cited for craftsmanship and the elaborate criss-crossing denim that decorated the lower leg. “I was thinking of an intercultural theme and the fact that Vancouver is a multicultural city,” Lee told the Straight after the runway show. “I was thinking of weaving, and the fact that a lot of different cultures use it, so that’s why it’s on the leg detail, belt loops, and back pockets.” They were a study in the kinds of details that fashion-obsessives look for these days: meticulous gold and red top-stitching, print-patterned lining inside the pockets, ankle zippers, and unique diagonal-seamed back pockets.

No two pairs looked alike. Kwantlen’s Christine Tai had crafted a two-tone pair in organic denim: the front was grey, and the back a black stretch denim. She tricked it out with an on-trend ultrahigh buttoned waist and exquisite gathers down the slender lower leg. Her schoolmate Tanya Ens entered a pair of sleek grey trousers with a slim fit, cropped legs, and a bit of rock ’n’ roll black-leather trim around the pockets and down the sides.

The inventive touches were endless: Kwantlen’s Matilda Chiu added a decorative vinyl lipstick holder on the front of the belt and a matching credit-card holder on the back, while Lethbridge College of Arts student Kosuke Ito put a giant, scalloping flap across the back of his baggy men’s jeans.

Not every style was so fancy. Blanche Macdonald Centre’s Jillian Rothert sewed up a pair that, with their loose fit, rolled cuffs, and large back pockets, looked straight out of the closet of Katie Holmes. Classmate Katy Flynn’s simple silhouette found giant, rectangular pockets and a looser fit up top tapering into stovepipe, bunchy ankles. Pacific Design Academy’s Sylvery J Gray amplified that effect by sewing elastics into her cuffs. Emblazoned with low-slung heart-shaped back pockets, her stretchy-dark-denim jeans looked hot with the model’s sky-high platform pumps.

Kwantlen instructor Evelyn May said her students had to choose and purchase their own denim and carefully research the market and the Nevada brand before creating their contest entries. “The execution was amazing-I was really proud of them,” she told the Straight at the show.

Lee, who said she took a day and a half to sew her winning design, insisted denim isn’t the worst material to work with. “It’s not that difficult,” she said, then added, eyeing all the red and gold lines along her belt loops, fly, pockets, and woven bits: “It’s just if you have a lot of top-stitch. That’s what’s hard.”