RVA Fashion Week branches out to jewelry showcase

More expensive than your education, probably

Danielle Elliott
Staff Writer

The second night of RVA Fashion Week was more than a typical runway show. The Wine Loft hosted “Uncorked,” a jewelry showcase that used models as live mannequins.

NYFO Boutique and miLA’s Bridal provided the wardrobe to compliment pieces by Schwarzschild Jewelers, Lo. K’elle Collective and Stitch & Knot.

“This is our first year that we’ve done a jewelry showcase and we really wanted to highlight the jewelry,” said Erin Brennan, executive director of RVA Fashion Week. “We’ve used a lot of different stylists in the past … and they are always highlighted, but they were accessories on the runway. It definitely wasn’t a runway show … and The Wine Loft was the perfect intimate, upscale location.”

David Lee, stylist and media specialist of RVA Fashion Week, said that having a jewelry show on a runway makes it difficult to actually see the jewelry.

“This allows them to come up close and see what it is, especially some of the local designers who you’re not going to walk into a mall and see it, so it gives them … visibility,” he added.

According to Lee and Brennan, The Wine Loft was a perfect fit for “Uncorked,” since it had the same upscale reputation as the designers being showcased.

“The main focus was a jewelry showcase, and the jewelry that we used was very high-end,” Brennan said. “The Wine Loft (already) attracts … kind of a high end clientele.”

NYFO Boutique and miLA’s bridal are also local high-end boutiques that provided outfits to compliment the jewelry.

“We wanted to pick outfits or designers that are nice, but they won’t outshine the jewelry because it is still a jewelry show,” Lee said. “If you pick local designers, sometimes designers are extremely creative, and people tend to be distracted by that.”

Lee and Brennan said that RVA Fashion Week is a different kind of fashion week since all of Richmond is invited and represented through different events during the week.

“That’s one thing with RVA Fashion Week: We want to invite everyone to be involved,” Brennan said. “What we want with RVA Fashion Week is to bring the local scene to the mainstream.”

“Each of the sessions kind of caters to a portion of Richmond,” Lee said, “We have the hospitals here, we have MCV, so we do the Catwalk for Kids. (There are) a lot of animal lovers, so we do the Richmond Animal League (show). Then VCU has a huge fashion/model department so we like to do the model competition to help them out.”

The Catwalk for Kids event is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. at Rockett’s Landing on Friday and Runway at CenterStage with the model competition was Wednesday night. “Uncrated/Recreated” to benefit the Richmond Animal League was the first event of RVA Fashion Week on Sunday, April 3 in the afternoon.

“The vision has always been to kind of spotlight how Richmond isn’t any other city,” Brennan said. “It’s really just spotlighting how diverse and awesome Richmond is with every aspect of entertainment, whether it’s arts, theatre, or music, fashion, style. All of that we fit into the entire week plus a few charities.”

For a complete listing of all RVA Fashion Week events, visit rvafashionweek.com.