Shop in Style: About Town

Just a couple of goings on while I'm out of town (The Bean and I are visiting Grandmom & Pop-Pop in the country - she smelled her first pig manure this morning - exciting!, then meeting H down the shore - it's glorious not having a set work schedule - we'll talk abou the lack o' sleep and multiple rounds of "Old MacDonald" another time)

12 September: Unless you've been under a rock, you'll know that there are only 2 days left to the District Sample Sale.

15 September: H Street Festival Fashion Show

15 September: Ananas founder/designer, Jennifer Baum Lagdameo, appears at the Tyson's Cusp location

23-30 September: DC Fashion Week. Yup, we have one.

Ongoing: New to DC: Urban Chic's offering personal shopping during and after regular store hours at their Georgetown location

...and help a vacationing blogger out - if you check any of these events out, shoot me an email or post a comment...let us know how they were.

Shop in Style: DC Fashion Week in September

Mark your calendars: DC Fashion Week is September 23-30. As the website announces, most shows are open to the public, but some require tickets. Show calendar to come...I'll be sure to announce when I hear.

A Little Bit Late: Fashion Wednesday in D.C. - Part I

Two Wednesdays ago, the style stars were aligned over our nation's capital. District Sample Sale. Press Preview to the Georgetown Cusp store. Opening show to DC Fashion Week. Either it was planned to make the rest of the world realize DC Has Style, or someone didn't check their calendars. Either way, it worked.

First stop, Cusp Georgetown. Airier, more open, more organic space than the impression I had of the Tyson's store. Love the stonework. Product lines are the same - by design - as other stores, but there's more focus on individual departments. Rather than shoes or cosmetics being out and about in the store, there's a specific shoe space. Easier to find. It's one of the changes Cusp customers asked for after the first stores. Cusp customers, consider yourselves heard. All in all, Cusp's got the goods.

A little disappointing, though, was the answer I got when I asked "Why D.C.?" I was hoping that I'd hear an "It's a new, edgy market," or "D.C. has the style sense (and moolah) to support two stores." What I got: "D.C. got lucky." I'm not sure whether Nieman Marcus (Cusp's parent company) just doesn't want to reveal its market selection criteria or process, or it means D.C.'s just got the plain ol' cash to support the store. I'm not stupid, of course that has to be part of a commerical decision - we are in a free market economy, after all - but as a Believer in D.C. Style, I was saddened. I could've handled a teensy white lie, NM PR people. What better way to win over customers than to tell them what great style they have?

DC Fashion Week

Yours truly is too behind-the-ball at the moment to have registered on time for DC Fashion Week* (yes, we have one), but I wanted to make sure to spread the word and get the buzz going outside of the immediate fashion circles.**

Founded 6 years ago, the events highlight all that's new and wonderful (and some long-time DC fashion envelope-pushers) about DC style. It has a decidedly DC mission "to increase economic deveilment in the area of fashion design, clothing merchandishing and modeling, and to enhance the visibility of the nation's captial as a center of international fashion." Where else in the world would a fashion-centered event find a way to throw in "economic development" (especially when tired old rock stars aren't involved)?

Tonight is the launch event Fair Trade Collections - held at the The World Bank, of course(who'da thunk we would have 3 fashion events in DC on one night - this, the press preview for Cusp Georgetown, and the District Sample Sale).

The week continues with The Betsey Johnson Collection showing at Club Avenue tomorrow, The African Student Association Presents Noire on Friday, and Saturday and Sunday are home to The Washingtonian Menswear Collections (shown at the Holiday Inn Capitol at the Smithsonian) and the International Couture Collections (talk your way into the Embassy of France and their beautiful space, if you can).

I do beseech the organizers to do a little more work on the website - for example, the tag at the top of the event calendar page notes that the next fashion week is February 25 - March 4 2007. That would be now. As the events listed on the page note. It's a little clumsy, but we'll assume that doesn't reflect the collections showing.

*Thanks to Catherine Andrews and her newly launched After Hours blog at washingtonian.com for reminding me. And thanks to The Liquid Muse for linking to Catherine.

**In the meantime, I'll see if someone at their offices will take pity on me and let me register for an event or two.