FASA Fashion Show 2009

This year’s theme at the FASA Fashion show was “A Material World” and focused on upcycling. Many of the garments were either resurrected from old clothes (dyed, painted, felted, or otherwise reworked) or were made from various discarded or unconventional materials (candy wrappers, garbage bags, wrapping paper, grocery bags, etc.). The centerpiece garment was a voluminous newspaper wedding dress!

Overall, there were some very beautiful and wearable pieces. My favorite piece was “Gumdrop” — a colorful, playful, yet sophisticated Caryl Gaubatz jacket of layered silk organza and silk broadcloth. Some of our members or previous speakers at our meetings had entries in the show and even sold their work! Do these names sound familiar: Sue Foss, Diane Barney, Jean Dahlgren, Susie Monday?

—INSERTED 21 June 2009

I would like to thank Nan and Joel Spring for their permission to link to Nan’s photo galleries and Joel’s video of the show!

There were some disappointments at the show. Pillars obscured much of the runway, and the sound system went out briefly. The singer was too loud, and her dedication of a song to the military (sung extra loudly with encouragement for audience participation) was bizarrely out of place and annoyed a lot of us. Sometimes it was hard to know which garment was being described when multiple models were on the runway at a time (some artists had multiple garments in the show).

I challenge AFA to have a show of our own or for more of our members to enter garments in the FASA show next year. We have the talent, innovative spirit, and soon we’ll have the numbers to pull this off with style!