Fashion Garments

If the inaugural Austin Fashion Week was tame and modest, then this year’s was a spectacle.

The somewhat surprising second edition of the fashion exploration featured events that likely will set the stage for the city’s fashion identity as it continues to jell in the coming years. This year’s display certainly left people talking, fueled by showcases such as naked sushi at Teddies for Bettys and By Definition’s rock-infused party.

I was on the front row for a Bollywood extravaganza as Bridal Motif designer Jaya P. Shukla, fresh from a trip to India, and salon owners Bill Pitts and José Buitron, who won the peers’ choice award for best hairstylist from the Austin Fashion Awards, offered a style show at José Luis Salon. (For a list of fashion award winners, visit my blog at www.statesman.com/go/thegoods.)

Models, who wore bejeweled cloaks, got their hair styled onstage, then shed their cover-ups to reveal Indian formal attire in chiffon, silk and other fabrics with hand-embroidered Swarovski crystals, beads and other materials. It was a packed, standing-room crowd as stylists such as Ladda Phommavong, Theresa Przybyla and Ricky Hodge — he just left José Luis for Kemestry Salon — showed their skills.

Jewelry designer Dean Fredrick Miller, who owns Dean Fredrick, stepped it up from last year’s open house at his East Austin studio. This year, the critics’ choice winner for best jewelry designer filmed a 1920s-inspired short film about a jewelry heist, gave away a diamond to one of the night’s guests and packed hundreds of people into ND at 501 Studios for a party of fashion and music that went into the wee hours. I got there just in time to watch the silent film get screened before band L.A.X appeared on-stage looking like flappers and gangsters. (Check his website for a link to the video.)

Then it was off to the French Renaissance-inspired A Hair Affair – Fashion Show Fund Raiser from Waterstone Aesthetics and hairstylist Ana Castro. The wigs got bigger and bigger with each model who stepped onto the raised runway at the Phoenix. The show reminded me of the drama of an Alexander McQueen show. The big-hair-is-beautiful-vibe reappeared the following night as I visited with “Project Runway” designer and Austinite Louise Black, who wore an oversized blond Marie Antoinette wig while showing her new garments, including her signature corsets, at Feathers Boutique.

All of this is to say this year’s Fashion Week wasn’t fashion weak, and its over-the-top events reflected the weirdness that this city claims for itself. Now that it’s over, I am amazed by how creative Austin’s style scene can be when it’s given a forum. This was not the typical sophomore slump.

At times, I felt as if I were at a style convention or, as another Austin writer called it, a festival of fashion, and at other times, the week showed the city’s best creative collaborations from designers, stylists, makeup artists and others.

No matter, the fashion crowd — a mix of fashionistas, music lovers, hipsters and the curious — was out in full force. Now, how could I forget about Saturday’s MTV-style fashion awards show, in which Touch of Sass boutique, José Luis and Dean Fredrick picked up Golden Boot awards and “America’s Next Top Model” winner Krista White gave a fierce runway strut?

Like last year’s show, this one was a combination of music, fashion (this time, we got showings from the Boudoir Queen, Chloe Dao and Celestino) and a certain Austin redhead.

Yes, the show’s host, singer Mandy Lauderdale, entered the stage inside a treasure chest. In an over-the-top, vaudeville style, she sang and danced her way through the 21/2-hour show, relying on several characters, costume changes and accents as well as dropping jokes about sex, shopping and even me. (They say you have officially arrived when you’re the punch line.) Guess Lauderdale learned all of that sassiness from her reality TV days on “Temptation Island.”

Austin hearts Big Apple

If you are looking for Austinites and can’t be in Austin, go to New York.

I spent late July and early August exploring New York neighborhoods, including Chelsea, Hell’s Kitchen, Tribeca and SoHo. The trip was more than magical and got me in the mood for fall clothes only to return to sweltering temperatures here for Fashion Week. I got to see some familiar faces, including Austinite and painter Graydon Parrish, who was teaching a summer course at an arts school, and public relations queen Elaine Garza, who was working from Giant Noise’s New York office

source:- http://www.statesman.com/life/style/austins-fashion-week-over-the-top-this-summer-879385.html