Backstage at the CCAI Recycled Seconds Benefit Cocktail Party & Fashion Show. Classy Seconds, Carson City, Nevada. October 16, 2009.
CCAI Courthouse Gallery
September 28, 2009 – January 8, 2010
The notes below were drafted by Jon Winet for the CCAI Courthouse Gallery exhibition "Recycled Seconds." Jon serves as CCAI's Curator and Program Consultant. He and Executive Director Sharon Rosse launched the organization
in 2002.
Community Is A Verb.
Recycled Seconds, the current exhibition at the Capital City Arts Initiative [CCAI] Carson City Courthouse Gallery is part of a larger CCAI project focusing on community-based practice, DIY fashion design, sustainability and civic engagement.
The exhibition showcases the talents of a gifted group of young, energetic, challenging, fanciful local designers.
High-end fashion, especially haute couture, the gold standard of a multi-billion dollar global industry, is undoubtedly brilliant, but exists exclusively in the domain of wealth and privilege. Regrettably, most of us experience haute couture as a fantasy through the pages of glossy magazines–or in television broadcasts from the red carpets of awards shows. [1]
In contrast, "street fashion," celebrates the imaginative efforts of smart and sassy shoppers who mine the potential of off-the-rack clothing, creating striking outfits–often in novel, unexpected and colorful combinations. The imitable style of 80's pop idol Cyndi Lauper comes to mind, but there are countless, and equally inspiring examples of street fashion in cities across the world in environments that range from chic nightclubs to high school cafeterias. [2]
DIY ["Do It Yourself"] fashion further democratizes and expands the range of what we wear, unleashing the creative potential of just about everyone to animate our "second skin." [3] DIY empowers people to take charge of their ‘look,’ and to actively adapt and create their own fashion.
The designers in this show have created a remarkable collection. Working in great measure with discarded clothing, for the most part discovered in thrift stores, their creations are reflective of the spirit of street and DIY fashion, and of the unique – and often haute couture – vision of each contributor.
Radical Fashion, a linked 2007 CCAI project at a temporary project space in Carson City, featured work by Kodi Fujii, at the time a recent Douglas High School graduate. For Recycled Seconds, Ms. Fujii played a lead role in assembling many of the participating designers, and in helping organize and coordinate an October 16 runway fashion show at Classy Seconds, one of northern Nevada's premier thrift stores.
The show was part of a benefit event made possible by the staff of Classy Seconds. Proceeds from the store support Advocates to End Domestic Violence, a non-profit social service agency that helps provide shelter, counsel and support to women and their children looking to escape abusive relationships and living situations.
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1. In drafting this essay, I realize that I have never seen an actual article of haute couture, with the exception of work included in WILD: Fashion Untamed, a 2005 exhibition at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. [back]
2. The Sartorialist, a fashion blog edited by Scott Schuman also provides many examples of street fashion. [back]
3. "Second Skin" is a term I borrowed from contemporary French cultural theorists as CCAI began to plan this project two and a half years ago. The term suggests the deep and vital role of clothing in culture and society, and its highly personal, expressive qualities. The success of Heidi Klum's Project Runway, and the elevation of its co-host Tim Gunn to quasi-rock star status, is just one measure of the fascination fashion holds in contemporary life. The continuing interest in textiles and fashion in visual art provides further evidence. [back]
Project Runway is aired on a network appropriately dubbed Lifetime.