Having experienced New York Fashion Week a number of times, both in the role back of house production as well as a seated guest, I must say that after attending Charleston Fashion Week (CHSFW), I was pleasantly surprised.
The city of Charleston is alluring within itself; what with the beautiful homes, historical sights, gardens and spectacular food. Plus, the view of the Charleston Harbor on a clear day is simoly stunning so, when you take all of that and add to it the excitement of fashion, it's no doubt a winning combination!
What better introduction to my CHSFW experience than to hob knob with all the other stylish VIP's? The Chris Benz event and truck show at Hampden (www.hampdenclothing.com) on King Street proved to be an opportunity to do more people watching than I have since the last time I was in NYC! My "fashionista in crime", Joy Randall and I spotted Mychael Knight (Project Runway Season 3) and I had the opportunity to chat it up with a true fashion icon, Fern Mallis. So, I'm thinking, if the widely credited creator of NYFW is here, CHSFW must be on point.
Following the VIP event and before making our way to "the tents", we took a leisurely stroll down King Street. I fell in love with one very SOHO-esque boutique called Wothwhile and the trip inside was certainly that! With everything from Christian Lacroix notebooks to flowy fabrication dresses with leather trim, this store was quite impressive to say the least.
In fact, many of Charleston's local shops were very intriguing. I spotted this unique creation in one of the boutique windows. Oh how I love creativity!
Shopping and window shopping complete, we made our way to Style Lounge Pre-Party held in one of the tents at Marion Square sponsored by smartwater. Inside, there were lots of fashionable folks having a good time enjoying the vendors, networking and definitely hanging out at the bar. I mean, what's a fashionable night out without a few cocktails?
The runway shows began at just around 7:30pm and just before the models hit the runway, I was treated to a back of house tour. I loved the professionalism and the organization of the hair and make up areas.
Planted in my seat and ready to enjoy a night of fashion, prior to the "Rock the Runway" model competition and the emerging designer collections were presented, we were treated with a viewing of my newest, most favorite local store, Gwynn's of Mt. Pleasant! (http://gwynns.com/) Check out this
video of the models' final walk.
The emerging designers' work gave a glimpse into the type of talent CHSFW looks for when selecting the semi-finalists. Presenting on this night were, Keely Lauren Cansler, Emily Pollard, Ashley Newsome, Shelly Lucille Smith and Hannah Goff. Some of these extremely talented designers gave us classic looks while others went avant guarde but each had their own personal perspective on fashion. Here's my pick for one of the most "interesting" looks of the evening. The face plate is intriguing...don't you agree?
From a production standpoint, the shows looked professional, the lighting and staging was awesome and the front-of-house set up gave me a big city fashion appeal. I wasn't as impressed with the models as I would have liked however, I really love how the city of Charleston shows it's support for the event and seem to rally together to present the common goal of highlighting fashion and style. Markets smaller than NYC don't always get it right in that department and events becomes more about the creators than the fashion itself but Charleston certainly gets it and sets an fabulously stylish example.
