Fashion doesn't speak, it screams

For the seventh-annual Fashions Speaks fashion show last Friday night, it wasn't completely clear to me what the glue was. Of course, because so many different designers and stores donated to the event, it may be too much to expect complete cohesion, but something should still have held it all together. The only common theme throughout the show was the cause, support for people with autism, but it was too far in the background to really work. In the end, the only common thread in the show was its diversity.

Because there were so many designers and way too much variety, it is difficult, if not impossible, to evaluate the clothing in the show as a whole, and it becomes necessary to focus in on a few choice pieces. A large majority of the clothes were on loan from stores in town and were either returned or sold on Saturday at the Fashion Speaks Sample Sale. Zoe - recently hailed by The New York Times as a store for "rich young moms married to hedge fund guys"- had, a bit fittingly considering the future of many Princetonians, the dominant presence, and even the emcees, Christine Miranda '08 and Colin Pfeiffer '09, were laughing when they had to announce that the next collection was, once again, Zoe. As expected, Zoe did have some nice pieces: a beautifully printed dress that managed to combine an interesting shape with bohemian flair and an orange shift dress that draped amazingly around the figure, loose while still form-fitting. Both dresses were sophisticated and yet not too grown up, making nice pieces for college students who want to be taken seriously but still have fun.

Stacy Gemma, a relatively new boutique in Palmer Square, also had some interesting designs, my favorite being a relatively simple gray and yellow silk dress, perfect for a hot summer day. Simple and elegant, it proves that fashion can be both practical and beautiful. The relative simplicity of the dress would have been nicely enhanced by some accessories, which were relatively lacking throughout the show, with a few pieces of jewelry being the exception.

J. McLaughlin, the definition of preppy, seemed to be experimenting with a look I like to call "Wading for Golf Balls" - in other words, rolling up the bottoms of pants to make it look as if the wearers' yacht was shipwrecked. Zoe's men's collection, on the other hand, was exactly the way we Princeton girls wished guys here dressed: in a sexy intellectual-in-cozy-sweater-I'll-borrow-later kind of way, perfect for wandering around our Collegiate Gothic campus. Long, soft cardigans and jeans, with European-style sneakers, are not at all difficult to pull off, and much preferred (to me at least) to Princeton guys' staple plaid shorts and polos.

The biggest surprise of the evening was that our fearless leader, Josh Weinstein '09, not only organizes study breaks but also, in his spare time, designs a line of blazers. Yes, that's right. And Josh by Josh Weinstein was incredibly well received by the audience, though that may have just been because the models wore nothing under the blazers but a bra...

Indeed, one of the most apparent themes of the show was that it was clearly not about fashion, or even charity. True, the performances from Shere Khan, Footnotes, Katzenjammers, BodyHype, eXpressions and Black Arts Company were a logistical necessity for the models to have time to change. But I did not understand why the organizers felt it was necessary to supplement the fashion with such over-the-top performances, which ultimately overshadowed the fashion part of the show.

The audience's enthusiasm for the models themselves also took center stage, making both the fashions and the cause afterthoughts. It's hard to think about autism, or even fashion for that matter, when that hot guy from math class is walking down the runway in a bathing suit. At one point, Pfeiffer said, "Let's give a hand for those models, and the clothes, too, of course," which was a pretty good way of summarizing the entire event. The student models seemed a bit amateurish on the catwalk, though many of their walks improved as the show went on and they gained confidence. A few exceptions were Salone Loney '10, whose appearances on the runway were always well received, and Alexandria Legget '11, who displayed an awe-inspiring sense of confidence. Her relatively infrequent struts down the runway can be described in one Tyra Banks-copyrighted word: fierce. Justin Karfo '09 and Ben Tagoe '09 also displayed wonderful energy and enthusiasm throughout the show.

What the show did do, and what it did well, was bring a little bit of that glamour that only a show can, into our everyday, stressed-for-finals lives. Sitting in the front row, though it said nothing more about you other than your willingness to spend $40 on a ticket, did inevitably make you feel a bit like Anna Wintour. The models, as they posed for photographs at the end of the runway, got the chance to feel like Daria Werbowy. And focusing on the clothes became the least of everyone's worries. Tonight, you're fabulous. You're beautiful. And oh yeah, please donate to the great cause.