This Friday, the Elmwood Village Association will present the third annual Mass Appeal runway show at Lafayette Presbyterian Church.
The event will showcase the unique style of the Elmwood Village with fashion and art from local boutiques and designers. This year, the event will also feature a wearable art theme, which will incorporate everyday objects into clothing.
Local fashionista Erin Habes, a Buffalo State College fashion-merchandising professor, owner of the former Sweet & Dirty boutique, and merchandiser for the street-wear store Krudmart, is heading the project.
This year's theme is inspired by the 1979 classic film, The Warriors, which follows highly stylized gangs competing in the graffiti-filled slums of New York City.
Local T-shirt screen-printing companies and graphic designers will be represented by their own gangs of models on stage. The eight-minute choreographed brawl from these T-shirt wearing "thugs" will take place among scaffolding, flashing lights, and a film-clip projection.
Habes hopes the event will become more community-oriented, as it will incorporate local non-fashion businesses into the scene by using themed materials from the stores to create wearable high fashion pieces.
Local businesses, including Elmwood Taco and Subs, Campus Wheelworks, Elmwood Village Fabric, and Spot Coffee, are teaming up with designers to incorporate everything from pages of books from Talking Leaves bookstore to beer cans and boxes from local convenience store We Never Close.
"I think people will be blown away," Habes said. "I'm seeing the process of [the designers] building [their] art on another level."
This year, Lulu Robinson, stylist, coordinator, and artist for Mass Appeal 2010, is designing wearable art for We Never Close. Robinson plans on constructing a bodice made of cans and using Pabst Blue Ribbon beer boxes for her project.
"This is the bread and butter of the fall," Robinson said. "People commit a lot of their time [to the event], and they've seen how awesome this show has been before. It has come to a point where [the designers] are really ready to step up their game."
According to Habes, the community is anxiously awaiting the show, the new wearable art category, and the caliber of talent that will be exhibited Friday night.
"In New York, there's an event every night, and we now have an occasion to dress up [in Buffalo]," Habes said.
All proceeds will go to the Elmwood Village Association. General seating is $30 and VIP seating is $125. Tickets are available at www.elmwoodvillage.org and at local Wegmans locations.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
