DC Fashion Week – Day 4

Posted on by Adrienne Keyser

The H Street Festival on September 20th, 2008 was an opportunity to shed some light on the revitalization of the art & entertainment industries in the developing NE section of DC. The festival showcased international foods, face painting, crafts, and carnival games. But more importantly it was the host of the 9th annual DC Fashion Week fashion show.

There is nothing new to discuss with the make-up because the designers only direction was a smoky eye. As I’ve said in previous entries this look is most designer’s favorite because it give the most impact on the runway. This was the first opportunity that the make-up artists had to use natural light for our applications (*AB-FAB Tip: natural light is the best light for applying make-up which is why my make-up table is in front of a window).

With that said it was also the best lighting to capture Ean Williams’, the director, creative vision for the DC Fashion Week hair looks. Like the make-up artists Ean used different stylist for each show. On this day the looks were achieved by a local H Street salon, which unfortunately I never got the name of.
Ean’s brilliant idea was to have sophisticated wearable looks in order for the over the tip designs to be the true stand out. With the simpler silhouettes he gave us major drama by having textured contrasting hair pieces inserted into the hair in either a sculptural braided bun…
…or in high art up-do’s reminiscent of the look that my favorite designer Alexander McQueen has shown in many a runway show.

Three designers showed at the H Street Festival. Unfortunately I missed the first designer finishing up one of the models make-up, but here are a few photos that I caught while the models where lining up and I was packing up my kit.

The next designer was Diallo. By looking closely at the craftsmanship of the collection I could see that Diallo was a new designer. He only had a few unembellished looks and kept the shapes simple in order to highlight his talent.

The menswear designs were very Rock-n-Roll with silkscreen tees and military style shirts. It was nice to see that the designer kept the audience in mind when selecting his looks for the show. These were looks that young men can relate to.
The looks for women the designer made sure were also very simple and wearable. He selected black and white as the color palette with red and yellow as the accent colors. The only print was a yellow, black, white and red abstract checkerboard pattern which Diallo used as a front panel for the pictured white halter and sheath dresses.
There was also a floor length yellow evening gown layered under a black daisy embroidered lace with a plunging V, strapless neckline and a bright yellow bow tied under the bust.
The trends of the collection were suspenders and ruffles. Diallo used sheer and velvet fabrics and accented a few looks for the runway with opera length gloves.

Good Job Diallo, can’t wait to see your next collection.

The director of DC Fashion Week, Ean Williams, was the last designer to show his collection at the H Street Festival. I believe that Ean used some of the looks from his Spring/Summer 2008 collection because of the jewel tone color of the Fall/Winter 2009 Ean gave us robin’s egg blues (my favorite), turquoise, and gold. Who could blame Ean for showing is Spring/Summer 2008 line on an 80° day and the point of a show is to sell your designs.

Ean used Corjor Sport for the menswear, showing sexy swimwear. White wife beaters were shown in order for the boy short and bikini cut bathing suits to really stand out. There was a blue stripe boy short cut bathing suit as well as navy and white polka dots on a few of the looks. My favorite was the turquois/paisley print boxer cut shorts.

Ean used Corjor Sport and Corjor Couture for the women’s wear designs. From Corjor Sport he used a few of the bathing suit looks that he showed at the 2008 Industry Networking event at Senate Square on September 18th. For the details of these looks see my blog on this event.
The Corjor Couture looks were luxury red-carpet evening gowns which is Ean’s specialty. There was a pleated floor length turquoise, tan and white ombré chiffon gown that sparkled with the blue and turquoise sequin flower accents on the cross strap, sweetheart neckline and all throughout the gown.

There was also a robin’s egg blue silk halter strap ankle length gown that had a matching blue sheer fabric layer that was embellished with blue sequin flower pattern embroidery. The dress gave the wearer shape because of the mirror and beaded Empire waistband.

April Miller, one of the Assistant Directors of DC Fashion Week, was given the most difficult piece of the Corjor Couture collection because anyone that has seen April walk knows she can work any look – SHE FIERECABULOUS.

Ean created an all blue square pattern sequin halter top (tied into a bow) evening gown that had a V-shaped scallop edge hemline that cascaded into a cathedral length train. This is not a look for wall flowers for sure!

Since Ean showed so few looks at the H Street Festival you will have to read about the rest of the collection in my picks because they were all FIERCEABULOUS!
Speaking of which, here are the…
AB-FAB FIERCEABULOUS PICKS:
1. From Diallo’s collection I loved the sheer white embroidered sleeveless day dress. Although this look was shown with a yellow ruffle collar I would have the designer create it without for me. I know that this picture does not do this dress justice but the embroidery detail is what makes this simple silhouette amazing.
2. What girl doesn’t love a great suit? Diallo gave us a modern twist to the tuxedo suit by showing it in heavy, white cotton and edged it in bright yellow on the jacket and again for the traditional stripe down the sides of the tuxedo pant. I am all about the different, the fresh and the new.

3. From Corjor Couture I am a reselecting the strapless irracescent bubble hem dress that I described in my blog on the first day of DC Fashion Week. It’s just that this time I have a great picture of it so you can see all of the incredible details. If there was one look that stood out to me from all of the collections that I saw over the week this is THE coveted dress (don’t forget there was also one in all black – I have a great photo of that one as well but you will have to wait for my blog on the final day of DC Fashion Week for that pic). All I can say is FIERECABULOUS!!

I am sure you get by now that Corjor Couture loves to layer sheer embroidered fabric over silk so my next 3 picks are all ankle length layered silk gowns with sheer fabric. Also they are all halter strap dresses where the only seam is where the silk halter strap meets the top of the dress. With that said, I will only talk about what make them different from each other.
4. This beautiful robin’s egg blue gown has matching blue laser cut petals, matching feathers and large crystal beads. 5. This look used contrasting sheer gold fabric layered over a robin’s egg blue silk dress. Turquoise and gold were used for the laser cut petals and feathers and instead of large crystals the designer used white pearlized beads to add sparkle to the dress.

6. My favorite of the 3 dresses was the one that had the most couture-hand detail. This incredible design had colorful embroidered flowers stitched into the sheer fabric but the dress truly came alive due to the colored laser cut petals that turned the floral embroidery into 3 dimensional art – FIERECABULOUS!

7. My final pick was again a sheer embroidered fabric over a silk gown but this train length gown had a matching thick, silk, empire waistband, a deep V neckline and a twisted halter tie. Like many of the dresses this one had floral sequin clusters accenting the gown, but what made this one exceptional were the sequin on the halter style ties and the sequin embroidery that became more involved toward the train of the dress included beading.


Stay Fashionable!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *