…was an “alternative” fashion show held Thursday night at a packed Catwalk nightclub in Pioneer Square. Billed by its promoters as “the next level of multi-media art,” it comprised runway segments by 12 local designers (including print MISC writer Jennifer Velasco), all coordinated and sequenced to form one semi-continuous spectacle.
The clothes were all fun and well-constructed. Some outfits were more creatively designed than others; but even the nothing-you-haven’t-seen-before garments (PVC fetish dresses; pseudo-rustic “tribal” rave wear) were perfectly good examples of their subgenres.
The hour-and-a-half show began over an hour late, and was prefaced by a long set of annoyingly repetitive techno music and video projections of war, famine, and mushroom clouds. Then a solitary female model wandered onstage and sat herself down, expressionless and mute.
This depressing moment was followed by several runway segments devoted to similarly downbeat themes (described in the show’s flyer as “Anger,” “Deception,” “Future Fear,” and “Mourning.” I began to worry that the whole show would be another example of Seattle people thinking they could only be hip if they imitated a New York sensibility–in this case a cynical, everything-sucks type of New York sensibility.
Only in the eighth segment, entitled “Inspiration” and costumed by our pal Christina Collins (see picture below), did the mood lighten up. The rest of the show, thankfully, was about (as the flyer said) “the transformation from darkness to light, from winter to spring.” The music became more listenable; the video images became more hopeful. Models began to prance instead of sulk; some even smiled.
The next designers’ segments continued the warming trend. I-Ching Lao showed off funky multicult wear, on models of non-bulimic stature. Megan Wilson presented colorful, sheer “Girlie Fashions,” on models who visibly enjoyed living in their bodies. Then came Velasco’s brief segment (see picture below), with bright-and-bouncy clubwear in cool shades of white.
On the freebie table at the front of the Catwalk were stacked copies of what might just be the dumbest fashion/lifestyle magazine ever created (and I know that’s saying a lot). The San Diego-based Revolt in Style combines pictorials about swimsuits and boxing, profiles of allegedly rising stars in music and movies, and strip-club ads. The name itself, of course, is the dumbest aspect of the mag. If this country ever had a real revolution, it’d be against commercial tripe such as that represented in Revolt.
