Teenager has contest in the bag
Tiffany Shomber is gallivanting around New York City, sightseeing and shopping today.
The Appling teen recently won a three-day trip and $1,000 shopping spree in a make-up bag designing contest sponsored by Teen Vogue magazine and the cosmetics company Maybelline New York.
A Teen Vogue representative contacted Tiffany's father, Keith, with the news. When he told his 15-year-old daughter she had won the grand prize, she was shocked.
"I really didn't think I would win," Tiffany said at her home last week before leaving for New York. "But I thought I would try it out and see how things went."
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Tiffany, a sophomore at Greenbrier High School who likes to sing and draw, saw the contest in the magazine and entered on a whim, she said. Her bag design showed a heart draped with a banner that read "love" with flames on either side.
Tiffany Shomber, 15, won a makeup bag design contest by Teen Vogue magazine and Maybelline New York.
Photo by Jim Blaylock
"I saw the heart, and I thought I'd add a little bit of excitement to it," Tiffany said.
But Tiffany was more excited about the trip and shopping spree than winning the contest.
"I want to see the World Trade Center site and, hopefully, the Statue of Liberty from the plane," Tiffany said, who went on the trip with her friend Chelsea Smith and Shomber's fiancee, Patricia Alston, as a chaperone.
The trio stayed at the Bryant Park Hotel in midtown Manhattan and toured the Teen Vogue offices in Times Square before experiencing the rest of the city.
A stylist with the magazine accompanied Tiffany while the teen spent her $1,000 in prize money in Manhattan's stores.
"She loves to draw all kinds of things," Shomber said of his daughter, who is trying to decide between becoming a singer or a mechanic after high school. "She likes to write and draw. It is just something she has always done."
The entries were narrowed down by Teen Vogue staffers before a separate board chose the winning design, said Erin Meanley, a promotion coordinator for the magazine.
"When we chose it, we though it was retro and cool," Meanley said. "It was simplistic."
Tiffany's design was chosen from hundreds nationwide to be put onto denim bags and given away as a gift-with-purchase with Maybelline products, Meanley said.
Photos and details of Tiffany's New York tour will be in Teen Vogue's December/January issue and will include her winning design, which also can be see at www.teenvogue.com.