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"Fashion Star contestant Kara Laricks was in the bottom two in the first week of the competition, but boy did she come back fighting! The 38-year-old sparked a bidding war when her dresses in this week&amp;#039;s episode impressed both Saks and H&amp;amp;M, eventually winning a $110,000 order from the former. Kara recently chatted to reporters about her success, so read on to find out how that order made her feel, whether it added any pressure, and what it felt like walking through Saks... Do you feel like you got enough feedback from the mentors in the design studio? &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s a good question. There are a lot of things that you don&amp;#039;t see on TV that went on behind the scenes and each one of us designers was very fortunate to have time with Jessica, John and Nicole. Unfortunately all of that doesn&amp;#039;t make it to the screen but I did have exciting feedback from all three.&amp;quot; Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently? &amp;quot;I have to admit, the collar plus tie I showed on the first episode - it truly is my signature piece. I build everything off of menswear-inspired pieces, and what&amp;#039;s more basic than a collar and a tie? So looking back, though it was a very risky move, I truly felt that that was what represented me best.&amp;quot; How did you come up with your menswear-inspired style? &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve always loved the combination of a masculine aesthetic paired with a feminine aesthetic and I think that&amp;#039;s just because I have those two sides to my personality and my style and the way that I dress. And I really love combining a menswear detail into a feminine dress or, you know, maybe something that&amp;#039;s a little bit more masculine and pairing it with something more feminine. It is who I am at my core and then also my design philosophy as well.&amp;quot; Can you talk about how your winning dress was constructed? &amp;quot;The back portion of the dress resembles the back of a men&amp;#039;s shirt, like a dress shirt. If you look at any men&amp;#039;s dress shirt it&amp;#039;s got that wonderful pleat that goes straight down the middle in the back, and that&amp;#039;s exactly what I wanted to incorporate in the dress. So, for example, in the first week I showed the collar and the tie from menswear-inspired pieces, and then the second week I wanted to take a different portion of something I consider very menswearish, the back of a white dress shirt and then include that into a dress.&amp;quot;  How much did your feedback from the first week and your non-elimination impact your decisions for the second week? &amp;quot;For the second week I knew it was really important to come out swinging. I knew it was really important to put a full look onto that runway. I felt like in the first episode I wasn&amp;#039;t the only one who had a piece that was paired with other things. There were jackets paired with shirts and pants, there were pants that were paired with tops. So I really felt like I needed to show the entire look this time which is why I went for the full dress. As for feedback from the mentors, they were extremely positive when I met with each one about the look of the dress that I presented on week two. They just encouraged me to go for it which was spectacular.&amp;quot; You got two bids from two different stores with different customers - what kind of woman are you designing for? &amp;quot;Gosh! I am designing for a woman who loves luxury, who loves quality and who loves an artistic design. I&amp;#039;ve gotten a lot of comments from women who&amp;#039;ve said, &amp;#039;I love the drape of that dress, I love the versatility, that it can be tied in the front or tied in the back, left hanging loose&amp;#039;, women who really understand good design. I feel like that crosses all age groups, all body types, and it&amp;#039;s more of a mindset, what you&amp;#039;re looking for in terms of design as opposed to a certain demographic.&amp;quot; Have you walked through Saks yet? &amp;quot;I sure did! It was great, I felt like a superstar. When I walked in on the first level everyone was so wonderful, they were saying, &amp;#039;Oh there she is! The designer of the dress, there she is!&amp;#039; It was very exciting because it was on the fifth level, so I got to go through five exciting floors of really, really lovely Saks associates. I was even headed into the women&amp;#039;s lounge and someone even followed me in and was saying, &amp;#039;Good luck!&amp;#039; and, &amp;#039;We love the dress!&amp;#039; It was really one of the most exciting days of my life.&amp;quot; You got such a great response to the dress - did it add any extra pressure? &amp;quot;When I got this incredible bid the second week, I knew it was really important that I continue with the same design philosophy, which was really to build off that original collar and tie and to make sure that my pieces looked consistent from week to week. So I knew that the dress was a good second representation of my philosophy - a little menswear-inspired detail - and then my feelings about the following week were, yes, &amp;#039;I need to match and exceed what I&amp;#039;ve done&amp;#039;. So the pressure was definitely there, but I was up for the challenge, for sure!&amp;quot;  You didn&amp;#039;t have to choose between the buyers, but if you did have to pick, who would you have gone with? &amp;quot;Oh my gosh, that&amp;#039;s a good question! Wow. Well, what&amp;#039;s been exciting and unexpected about this show is I&amp;#039;ve really seen first hand how much people are looking for a value and clothing that is a little less expensive, so in that vein it would have been amazing to see my design go into H&amp;amp;M. However, I have always dreamt of selling in stores like Saks Fifth Avenue, Barneys, Neiman Marcus, because I just have such admiration for the designers that hang in those stores. So therefore I think if I had to make the choice I would have gone with Saks.&amp;quot; Which of your other contestants do you think are particularly talented? &amp;quot;Oh wow. I have to say I love each one of the other contestants as people. So first of all, they&amp;#039;re great people and I feel very fortunate. That&amp;#039;s been an exciting byproduct of this show, is to have a lot of great friends come out of it. In terms of talent, I think Nzimiro has a very keen eye for detail in menswear and I loved seeing what he was going to come up with each week. And I actually went to design school with Ronnie, so I knew he had great training and also an incredibly eye for clothing as well.&amp;quot; When did you realise that people might actually want to buy your clothes? &amp;quot;As cheesy as this sounds, fashion really has been a passion for me for a long time. My mom always said, &amp;#039;Honey, you need to choose a career that&amp;#039;s safe for you and has good health benefits and a good salary&amp;#039;, and that&amp;#039;s why I was a teacher for ten years. I shouldn&amp;#039;t say that&amp;#039;s the only reason - I loved the kids and I loved what I did. But I taught for ten years and then just decided I wasn&amp;#039;t getting any younger and really took a huge leap of faith by leaving the teaching profession and then going back to school at the Academy of Art. When I went back to school I literally threaded a sewing machine for the very first time, I learned how to drape and draw and sew. It was one of the best times of my life because it was just so rich with learning a new skill. It was amazing. This whole career switch has been a huge leap of faith and I&amp;#039;m just grateful it&amp;#039;s working out in my favor.&amp;quot; You mentioned in the design studio that you&amp;#039;d never seen someone wearing your dresses before - so what&amp;#039;s it like now, knowing that people are buying them? &amp;quot;Gosh! You have no idea the sense of pride and satisfaction that I feel knowing that women are actually wearing clothing that I designed. And to go beyond that, to know that women all over are throwng on a cool neon pump with that dress or they&amp;#039;re wearing flat tie-up spectator shoes or they&amp;#039;re putting a white button-down underneath it or they&amp;#039;re wearing a cool pair of jeans and Converse underneath it... you have no idea how exciting and thrilling it is for me to see one vision to that dress, but then to know that there are women everywhere who have their own vision and they&amp;#039;re all different and they&amp;#039;re taking that dress and making it their own - that to me is the greatest sense of satisfaction.&amp;quot; Fashion Star airs Tuesdays at 10/9c on NBC. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/fashion-star/interviews/a372654/fashion-star-kara-laricks-qa-i-felt-like-a-superstar-in-saks/>