“I saw the power of combining story with dance and fashion and was really intrigued by the dynamics of that combination,” Amy Kimberly, former executive of Carbondale Arts, stated on the Carbondale Arts website.
That legacy was beautifully echoed in this year’s Carbondale “Step Right Up” Fashion Show, which ran March 12-14, as direction was passed down to Emily Fifer and Meagan Londy Shapiro to creatively build on Kimberly’s approach to express story through fashion.
This year’s carnival theme began by introducing the infamous roles that make a circus what it is, to the weaving of a narrative through movement, music and garments. The production transformed the runway into something more theatrical than traditional fashion. The hypnotic yet alluring performances of the aerialists, vintage circus advertisements and the doll-like elements that flowed through hair and makeup were factors that all heightened that nostalgic carnival feel.
I’ve attended a handful of fashion shows over the past few years, yet there’s something about Carbondale’s that has so far enlightened me the most. Possibly, it’s the opportunity to design? The anticipation of knowing what the upcoming theme is, the choreography, or just the overall thrill of experiencing the work of artists in our own community. But as my eyes wandered around the room, it made sense what the foundation is that makes this event so memorable.
Those lucky enough to attend the annual show might have caught themselves — maybe consciously, possibly not — bopping their heads like a flock of urban pigeons to the energetic soundtrack and the models’ bold on-beat runway walks.
What makes this fashion show so special isn’t just the clothes, but the love we have for each other as a community. The countless volunteer hours that go into enriching the experience, and the local businesses giving a hand in any way they can.
Carbondale is crazy; creatively crazy. The kind of crazy where dancers, designers and volunteers collide to create something bigger than themselves. And for a few
nights each year, that chaos is highly awaited.
Don’t get me wrong about the following statements. I love shows; I love seeing people’s eyes drag themselves from look to look, like grandfather clocks, stepping into crazy sets. It’s a blessing to experience a passion for the art with others, but there are times when I yearn for that chaos. And dare I say, I’ll miss Carbondale’s extravagant approach to fashion.
The more open I’ve become with people about fashion and the art it has to offer, the more I’ve realized that some people — not everyone — assume fashion is only about appearance, and about caring too much on how you’re perceived, or proving yourself materially. Or they reduce it to the simple act of covering yourself, for God’s sake.
But fashion goes much deeper than what you see. Fashion is felt, it’s political, hectic, beautiful and expressive all at once. And right now, as we are all living through a questionable and concerning state of the world’s politics and society, this year’s show left me with something beyond a good laugh to take home.
The way our society has been gradually emerging into something almost satirical and obscure, far from what many of us envisioned for ourselves, took center stage.
There were lines that, sure, were off-theme but gave a chaotic sense in their own way, and more like reflections of who we’ve become. “Kingdom of the Sporeborne: Icons of the Mycoverse” by Lawrence Pevec, Hamilton Pevec and Ayana Pevec Brown grounded the runway in something ancient and organic with exotic fungal forms that spoke to our deep, rooted connection to earth.
Beautiful Polynesian dancers, “Golden Souls of Nature” by Aspen Polynesia, brought the natural world to the runway with feather-covered attire. In contrast, “Plastic Revival,” a line constructed of recycled material, tagged along with model Anders Carlson and his bold caveman-like stage presence, felt hardly jarring in the slight reminder of who we once were.
It made me think about our evolution and how our reliance on synthetic materials has reshaped not only our environment but also our identity, taking over our lives entirely.
The ecological narratives continued through “Felt Goods” by Jill Scher and “Colorado Animals” by Rae Swon, who worked along with Heirlooms Consignment by curating outfits, where motifs such as the beautiful animal headpieces and colorful palettes resembled our roots in land and wildlife, prompting me to think further about where we come from and what we are becoming.
“Vallee Noone” made that looming aspect of the show feel tender to the subject of growth within civilization and our personal moral relation to it through its use of structured cardboard and ribbon and the beautiful fragility carried by the models themselves.
But the collection that has been lingering with me most was “Branded” by Bineke Kiernan. It was the one I couldn’t immediately decode, the Campbell Soup. The configuration some of these looks carried made me eager to try to understand the concept at its slightest.
For those who understand Spanish, I hope you picked up on the chosen song for this line. “Shock,” a Spanish song by Ana Tijoux, additionally revealed a layer of what this line was about.
What I took note of through my channeled Dumbo ears: the song grounds itself in the idea of anti-capitalism and the webbed concerns of political resistance, further speaking to systems of control within our government and societal dissensions. And that was feasibly the point. In a modern world where everything carries a name, is marketed, consumed and owned, what exactly does it mean to be “branded”?
Each form of art presented on that runway revealed the deeper side of fashion that I wish the industry would showcase even further. Along with the roles played within a carnival was the chaotic beauty of taking risks, the concerns we hold about the world we live in and what it means to be part of it. In the long run, life is a circus. This year, Carbondale didn’t try to tame that chaos but wonderfully embraced it to its fullest.