El Paseo Jewelers Fashion Week returns Saturday, March 19 through Saturday, March 26 and will feature cocktail receptions, celebrity meet-and-greets, pop-up shops, world-renowned designers like Keanan Duffty, Trina Turk and the “stars of tomorrow” of the fashion industry.
Fashion Week was last held in 2019, with two years off due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Designers including Turk, Michael Costello, Aneka Brown, Duffty, Christopher Bates and Edwin Oudshoorn will join 10 Fashion Merchandise and Design Institute graduates to showcase purpose-built collections around a new interactive U-shaped catwalk.
Fashion Week kicks off on Saturday at 6:30 pm with Turk’s “West Coast Attitude” collection and ends on Saturday, March 26 with Oudshoorn’s “The Fantastical Fashions.” All afternoon performances will take place on the upper level parking deck at The Gardens at El Paseo, 73-545 El Paseo, Palm Desert.
Each night is scheduled around a variety of themes, and even offers the opportunity for donors and volunteers to walk the runway with their rescued dogs as a way to raise money for local charities, including: Palm Springs Animal Shelter and California Paws Rescue in Palm Desert. “Le Chien” will take place on Sunday March 20 at 5 pm with a cocktail reception at 4 pm
Duffty, award-winning British fashion designer, musician, and author, will present his “Rebel! Rebel! On the Runway” collection on Tuesday, March 22 at 6:30 p.m.
“It’s an incredible privilege to be able to perform in Palm Desert, with a live audience, in a traditional runway setting,” he said. “I think COVID really made everyone take a look at what they were doing in all creative fields. It’s great to be with real people, not necessarily fashion editors, but real people who consume fashion. I’m very lucky.”
Duffty, who has dressed the Sex Pistols, Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler and David Bowie, has had tremendous success not only in the fashion industry, but also with his band Slinky Vagabond.
“One of the advantages of COVID was taking the time to reassess more than anything else. With this show, I chose to do a retrospective presentation with all the original video content,” he said.
Duffty hopes to communicate a sense of freedom and subcultural influences with her presentation of 30 Styles for Men and 10 Styles for Women.
Palm Springs Life fashion director Susan Stein said In 2019, El Paseo Fashion Week had a total attendance of 13,650, 240 volunteers, 23 El Paseo stores participated, and nine charities received more than $58,000.
“A lot of times it takes more than a year to put together a show,” said Stein, who has been Fashion Week’s producer and fashion director since its first year in 2006. “We started 15 years ago and at our first show we had 250 people in a tent, now it’s eight days with nine shows”.
According to Palm Springs Life, Fashion Week is one of the largest direct-to-consumer fashion shows and is accompanied by pop-up stores where attendees can not only meet the designers, but also get direct access to pieces from the collection. immediately after the show. Stein encourages all who wish to volunteer for the fashion show.
“It’s a great way to enjoy the glamor and energy of fashion week and meet new people,” she said. “We’ve had volunteers come back for 10 years because they’re giving back to the community and they get to see and be a part of the whole event.”
The event is presented by Palm Springs Life and sponsored by El Paseo Jewelers and Bobby Lampros. For more information and tickets, visit https://www.fashionweekelpaseo.com. For volunteer opportunities, email [email protected].
Source: www.desertsun.com