Dickinson, N.D. woman takes to the N.Y.C. runway during Fashion Week

For one Dickinson resident, life has shared the spotlight of glitz and glamour with homegrown values.

Twenty-eight-year-old Sarah Willman just returned home to family and friends after modeling at the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York City.

The Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week is the premiere showcase of up-and-coming styles by top international designers. Celebrities and fashion gurus gather to bring the new spring styles into the forefront.

This was the second year Willman got to strut down the runway during Fashion Week, but that didn't take out the exhilaration.

"Everything was great," she said. "It is the excitement and everything. The designers and diversity and

culture."

For 10 years, Willman has been modeling on and off, but it wasn't something she ever imagined she would do.

"I just kind of fell into it, it was never a dream," she said.

She started modeling when one of her friends asked her to do a shoot, and since then she has networked and is contracted with a New York agency.

"People start seeing your work and they start loving it," she said. She doesn't have a favorite designer and said she enjoys seeing designers grow artistically and try new styles.

"Everything goes with fashion," she said. "There are so many different kinds. It is fun and there is always a surprise."

The walk down the runway might be more work than one would expect, she said, with shared dressing rooms, shoes that don't fit and people prodding at the model making final touches.

"It is insanely crazy," she said. "You have probably 10 seconds to put on an outfit, and people are doing your makeup, people are doing your hair, you do not even get a chance to look at yourself before you walk on the runway. You just have to concentrate and do your thing and stay busy and then its over. It's fun, but its excruciating."

Willman spends about one weekend a month in New York, but escapes the hustle and bustle of the Big Apple by spending time with her two children in Dickinson. She said she attends church two times a week and is trying to do the best thing for her kids because, "New York is not a place to raise children."

Willman said it is a unique experience to attend a fashion show and urged others to go if they have the chance. However, some of the looks can be extreme.

"There are so many cultures and diversity," she said. "People might look at you funny if you came straight from Fashion Week wearing what you wore there."

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.