Seattle Fashion Capital?

It isn't necessary to have Seattle become another fashion capital a lot like it isn't necessary to have sports entertainment a part of the city. From region to region, fashion by its own locomotive powers moves increasingly far in its own distinctive style and flavors. Los Angeles, Florida, Chicago, and New York are marked with a distinguishing taste, and conjure for the well adjusted/informed fashionista(o) it's own spell of ebullience and excitement. But every time I read a report or watch anything on Seattle fashion, it seems only to pay an homage to the 90's grunginess but leaves a mystery as to what the Space Needle'd city has evolved to become. On the streets hipsters roam about, hip-hop aficionados rock their wear, and punk style will occasionally garnish an otherwise plain range of lines being worn during a bus ride. There are markers of fame with fashion designer Luly Yang and international name Nordstrom. However, the mentioned houses have gone to a broader taste that lacks the local flavor (we can debate this) Seattle has.

Fashion Designers based in Seattle include:


Neodandi




Michael Cepress

Alred (Lavsh) Lape

Wai-Ching

Emeka Alams

Naomi B.

Blayne Walsh

Logan Nietzel

Luly Yang

Create a community- I feel like there could be a feeling of camaraderie and a greater sense of support for local designers like there is in the fashion industries of New York and Los Angeles. Designers and promising students from Seattle will often leave to the aforementioned cities to grow and hone their abilities because that's where the market is. That's when reliance on huge design names becomes pesky business since a return to a place of origin for a designer would be a step backward. There are very wealthy buyers in Seattle who can afford expensive design wear but it would be wonderful if local designer could cater to a broader range of consumers instead of at one end of a spectrum. Ideally for me, Seattle would have a mixed community of counter culture designers and business savvy designers. Utility wouldn't be the core of the growth of fashion in Seattle. Rather, there is a need that is being filled by the designer to free the conscience of the wearing individual from social stigmatizations. It's not that I'm expecting a fashion designer to act on his/her good will to create clothes that will benefit mankind (some just want to create beautiful things, and that's just fine with me); that view tends to lead to hegemonic identities anyway and pretty stuffy elitist separations which totally sags the communal sense that was lacking in Seattle in the first place.

I think the importance of a strong fashion community is reflected in what we are seeing in the development of this years Fashion Shows.

After spending the night researching and contacting fashion PR firms for Seattle Fashion Week as part of UW's La Mode fashion club (free plug-ins: join!), I now know that Seattle hasn't a SINGLE fashion PR firm (only loose affiliations), and that the 8 'major' fashion shows in Seattle that should be combined in to a solid week are splintered rivalries. This years Seattle Fashion Week is going to be competing against a new show for the definitive title of Fashion Week: Emerald City Fashion Week. CEO of ECFW Steven Matsumoto decided to create his own fashion week after reading a review written by Seattle Pi blogger Stacy Lucier for "another local fashion week (*cough* SFW) he was approached to work on."

Seattle is Inundated with Fashion Shows


There's Seattle Fashion Week

Seattle Green Fashion Week

Live for Life Fashion

Thaw

Bellevue Collection

FACE

Fashion First

Multiple comments about Seattle Fashion Week and its founder/executive director Gabriel Choy displayed outward disappointment and frustration with the calibre of 2009's production and the direction Mr. Choy took in last years show. ECFW on the other hand has garnered some major support from the Seattle Chamber of Commerce and what looks to be some important big wigs in the state.

Reading through the originating message board of Seattle Fashion Week 2009's review, I thought this comment best expresses what I'm getting at as well as conveying the desires people in Seattle's fashion industry feel:

"Seattle isn't a very conducive environment for the fashion industry. People are haters, no one likes to share and network, and often times there just isn't any room to grow. Unless you want to become a buyer for Nordstroms, design for Eddie Bauer, or Zumiez. It's not to say we don't have talented individuals in this city, but in the long run people who want to take their fashion careers on a different level either have to move to New York or Los Angeles. That's how it is and has always been. It's a shame, but whatever.

Until people in this city learn how to work together and help one another out this industry will continue to move at such a slow pace. Fashion show producers in this city are so divided. Seattle Fashion Week, Fashion First, FACE, Thaw, Bellevue Collection, Live For Life Fashion, Seattle Green Fashion Week, etc. If anything all of these fashion shows should be under one entity, and if if they were...I can only imagine the possibilities! But nope. People are self-centered, greedy, and competitive. This whole, "I'm better than you attitude" is a dominant outlook in this city that it's no wonder this industry is so stagnant. I know in LA and New York the industry is cut throat too, but there are actual networks and communities that help one another thrive.

If you do your research fashion show producers in LA and New York have very close relationships with agencies, designers, etc. When Marc Jacobs had his first show after leaving Perry Ellis all his models worked for him for FREE. And if I were a model I would walk for Logan Neitzel and Naomi B. any day for free knowing that one day these are the designers who are going to make a mark in the future.

Sometimes it's not about getting paid, but helping one another out. And I don't know if any of you have been up to date with the news and all, but we're in a recession. Duh! I volunteered a great deal of time to Seattle Fashion Week knowing I wasn't going to get paid. It would be nice, but in the end the producers had to pay a large sum out of their own bank accounts to the venue. Talk about $66,000 for a venue. For your information Seattle Fashion Week did not ask any of the designers or retailers for a single dime, as Fashion First will ask $3,500 for retailers.

Yeah the event had some flaws...a lot of them, but at least we had an event that was beneficial to the designers. Not to mention, at least we had a fashion week this year, unlike LA! The Seattle Fashion Week website averages about 4,000 visitors a day. As a local designer who wants national recognition I would pay to be featured on that site knowing the right person might stumble upon it.

People in this city should check their egos, work on their people skills, and try their best to put an emphasis on both the good things as well as the bad things. While Seattle Fashion Week isn't everything I imagined, and if it were my show it would have been ran a lot differently, however...I learned a great deal met a lot of people who I know will help me grow in my career. I will continue to value the relationships I built with the designers, models, photographers, and the SFW team.

So in the end if we can look at Seattle Fashion Week as something fun, a stepping stone, and something that requires some constructive criticism and improvement, then I am all for it."

If only all of the energy being focused on these separate shows would ally with each other. I kind of wish we had a fashion counter culture here. Designers who make innovative/creative/wonderful clothes for the people on the streets and would be able to live comfortably.
Woe to Seattleites that we are missing out.

We have so much potential; why not become a fashion capital?

Or better yet, a culture of fashion, both in what we wear, what we think, and what we do.

Perhaps the next few years will see some improvements. Tres chic Seattle.

~m~