If you’re the type who enjoys the cut-throat absurdity of a Top Chef/Top Design/Fashion Show et al challenge, you might want to save August 28 for this year’s Product Runway. Tickets are on sale now; the design rumble will take place at the Seattle Center Exhibition Hall.

Here’s how Product Runway works: Well before the show — but you know, not too well — interior designers, architects, and students from the Seattle area are teamed up with product manufacturers — folks who make upholstery fabric, tile, and environmentally sound flooring alternatives. With these not-exactly-silk-chiffon materials, the teams create garments.

Hopefully they’re gorgeous, maybe they’re wearable, most often they are innovative and, well, interesting. For photos from last year’s runway, check this out.

Sure, the design competition (now in its second year) is a staple guns-and-carpenter’s glue fight to the death, but Product Runway is also a fundraiser for the Interior Design Coalition of Washington, which supports it’s community all over the state.

[Image from productrunway.com]