If anyone needs a good excuse to rip open a bag of Tayto’s finest cheese and onion crisps then we’ve got one so do, please, read on…
For a young Banbridge woman needs your help in gathering up hundreds of empty packets for a unique idea to bring to a Las Vegas stage.
Curious? We were.
But when we caught up with Rachel Mulligan, a much more crisp image of what was going on began to take shape.
For Rachel, an acting manager with Praxis Care, is competing in a pageant where she hopes to wow judges Stateside with a taste of our County Armagh home.
And to wow she will wear a truly unique garment which she will fashion from everyone’s favourite snack.
The event is Global Icon, with Rachel’s involvement and success shaping her passage to the casino capital of the world where she hopes success will, literally, be in the bag!
She told Armagh I : “I actually entered a pageant system, Diamond, which is based in the United Kingdom, but the girls from over there came over here two years ago and they held a heat. So once I won that heat over here in Ireland, I then got to go over to the UK and compete.
“And, with winning in the UK, last July I got to go to California to compete for Global Icon originally and I placed as first runner-up, so got offered the opportunity to go back this year and compete, which is going to be held in Las Vegas.”
Global Icon, says Rachel, is a pageant system, adding: “It’s all based about empowering women, men, children, of all sorts of age, size, no matter what.
“It’s on at the end of July, but I’ll fly out to Vegas on the 24th of July and then the competition’s on from the 29th to the 1st of August.”
It is a multi-faceted competition, with many different strands and opportunities.
“There’s various different rounds to it, where some of them are optional and some are mandatory,” added Rachel. “There’s an interview round, which is sort of your highest score. It’s just sort of to see about the person and to get someone that they want to promote their system really and everything that they value.
“Then they’ll have various different ‘on stage’ rounds. They’ll have an opening round and some of the rounds are still being confirmed this year.
“Then there’s the evening wear round, which is more like your ballgowns and stuff like that. Then they also add in a round which is your national costume; it’s to kind of show where you’re from without having to really say where you’re from.”
Having learned that, it was a true lightbulb moment for Rachel…
“I was thinking about a way that I could sort of show this place off, and I always know that whenever some of my friends from the UK come over, they’ll always talk about Tayto crisps, or I’ve had friends that have gone off to uni and they’ll get them posted over to them because they can’t get them there.
“I just thought, what could I sort of do? And then I thought of the idea of Mr Tayto, but obviously putting a bit of a twist on it. My idea is to take the traditional red suit of Mr Tayto but turn it into a dress, with a tie, and then to make a big potato crisp packet sort of cape coming off the back of it.”
And this is where Armagh I readers can assist, as Rachel needs help to draw together the materials for the dress to allow her to get to work as time really is of the essence.
“I’m going to say I might need about 500-ish,” she adds. “I am hoping that that would do it, maybe less, but I want to really bulk it out and make it worth doing.
“It’s actually harder to get than you think and I don’t want to go down the route of printing out pictures of it. I want it to be proper authentic.
“It’s not the type of thing that I would normally do, but whenever it comes to things like that I would sort of try to put my own ideas together. I’ve sort of planned it out and, to be honest, I don’t know how long it’s going to take.
“The plan of what I’m thinking, just for the base of the dress, the red dress itself, I planned to gemstone it and it’s looking on average when I worked it out about 60,000 to 80,000 gemstones. So it’s going to take hours. I would say, once I’ve got all the stuff within the next week or so, I would say it’ll probably take me right up until mid-July to get it finished.”
One of Rachel’s sisters and her niece are expected to travel to the US too, where Rachel – who will fly from Belfast to London, to California and on to Vegas – will model her home-grown creation on stage.
She therefore would be indebted to anyone who can help in her cheese and onion crisp bag quest.
For now, Rachel is grateful to all who have supported her thus far.
“ A big amount of my supporting and doing it has been through self-funding and with my family’s support,” she said. “And I would like to thank the local community for their support too on this whole venture.”
If you can help with Rachel, please do get in touch at Facebook
: Rachel Mulligan
: Rachel Mulligan Miss Diamond Northern Ireland
