Philadelphia

Feeling like a little Fall getaway? Grab some tickets here for Philadelphia Fashion Week 2009 coming right up October 8th-10th. This three-day celebration of fashion, food and drink, and arts and culture is a great way to get to know what Philly is all about. A sneak peek at some of the designers involved are below, including Darling Brooklyn Royalty. Many thanks to Charlie Smith, Production Director, for taking a few moments to answer some Darling questions about the vision of  this event in it’s first year.

Darlings: This is the first year Philadelphia presents a Fashion Week, how did it come to be?
Charlie Smith: Michael Anderer, Kristie Bergey and I began working on Philadelphia Fashion Week one year ago. We saw a wonderful opportunity to provide a forum to bring fashion and art to Philadelphia in a capacity that it has never been seen. Additionally, we saw a chance to give back to our own community by supporting the retail, supporting the fashion, supporting the schools and the green initiative of the City of Philadelphia.

GAR-DE

Darlings: Support for local designers and Fashion Week festivities are popping up all over, and each seems unique to it’s own community. How does Philadelphia Fashion Week represent the unique characteristics of your community?
CS: As I said, we have built our event around Philadelphia. We never wanted to just import another city’s fashion week and we knew that if we did it would never succeed. We constructed Philadelphia Fashion Week around the city that it will represent. We recognized that we wanted to showcase fashion that is relevant to Philadelphia, therefore we are showing designers who are either from Philadelphia or who are sold in a Philadelphia boutique. From the get-go we knew that we wanted to support our schools as they are the future of fashion. Furthermore we recognize and support Mayor Nutter’s ambition of making Philadelphia the greenest city by 2015 and decided to show our support by doing our part.

Marina Makaron Moscow

Darlings: Do you think the independent fashion industry is growing in Philly? Do you see public awareness of the industry growing?
CS: Philadelphia already has a rich history in fashion. From production to retail we are a city of firsts. It is my hope that Philadelphia Fashion Week will highlight the business that is already here in Philadelphia and will inspire new business by piquing the interest among buyers, designers and the consumer. Already we are seeing designers move their lines and production to our city from elsewhere because Philadelphia is an affordable city to have a business with a big city lifestyle.

S. LOVE

Darlings: There is so much to think about when planning a fashion show, what is the most important thing you have learned that you can share with us.
CS: Communication. Well, communication, trust, scheduling, to-do lists… the list goes on. This has been a tremendous learning experience. Philadelphia Fashion Week is already the largest professional fashion event ever in Philadelphia and we are in our first year. We would never have been able to pull off such a production if we did not communicate with each other, trust that we can all take care of our responsibilities, and, above all, love what we were doing in the process.

Commonwealth Proper

Darlings: We love that student work will also come down the runway at PFW. Tell us about that and the Student Design Award.
CS: Macy’s is one of the most involved sponsors of Philadelphia Fashion Week. With the myMacy’s initiative that its corporate office is starting to individualize the store to the neighborhoods that they are in, Macy’s saw a wonderful opportunity to support this Philadelphia Fashion Week from the ground up. Three schools, (Moore College of Art & Design, Art Institute of Philadelphia, and Philadelphia University) have collected the best works of their students to send down the runway. With a maximum number of outfits of 35 looks, each schools will be judged on creativity, production of show, execution, marketability and overall cohesiveness of the show. The winning schools will have the opportunity to stage an encore runway show in Macy’s Center City store and to display their work in a Macy’s store window.

Brooklyn Royalty

Darlings: Is Philadelphia Fashion Week only for local designers? How can a fashion designer get invited to show as part of your event?
CS: Philadelphia Fashion Week is not only for local designers, we have local, national and international designers showing in this year’s event. Our only stipulation is that the designer must either be from Philadelphia, or be carried in a Philadelphia boutique to show in Philadelphia Fashion Week. We have made the process of getting involved very easy, just visit our website at www.philadelphiafashionweek.org and contact us from there.

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