Portland Fashion Week kicked off last night at its latest location at NW 14th and Pettygrove.  The vendor tent is open to the public with booths, a live band, a bar and an upstairs VIP lounge.  I can't say I was that impressed with the booths.  Nothing extremely interesting was being presented.  From there, we were ushered into the show tent about an hour behind schedule. The show was scheduled to start at 7:50 and we didn't get to our seats until 9.  Mayor-elect Sam Adams provided an intro to this week's events and introduced key players.  After an interesting dance performance, the fashion kicked off with a sportswear-inspired line by Icebreaker.  I think my favorite part was the wiener dog that came out with an underwear-clad male model as the final look of the line.  

Following Icebreaker was a series of collections from students at the Art Institute of Portland.  The first collection was of dresses that were creatively constructed entirely out of paper.  Very fantasy-inspired and, according to the models, the easiest to get in and out of!  The next group of dresses had to be graduation gowns reinvented as the "little black dress".  It was dubbed Project Re-Fab and a winning design was to be chosen by guest judges Adam Arnold, Marjorie Skinner, and Lisa Radon.  Some designs were more mainstream and could be found in any department store while others were much more inventive and added other elements and colors and interesting lines.  

Leona Lewis' 'Bleeding Love' brought some young hip hop dancers onto the runway to perform a routine that seemed somewhat out of place.  I didn't really understand what the point was or how they fit in with the fashions being presented.  If not for the impressive dancing of the one blonde girl in the bunch, it would have been a dull, and long, interruption.  After the dancing, I had to run out for a bathroom break after which we couldn't make our way back to our seats that were front row.  So, we crowded Gemo in his DJ booth and watched the final collections from there.  I will say I was a bit more distracted by this point and didn't get any more pictures since my camera was still sitting on my chair next to the runway.  

Following the show, we headed to Bay 13 for the after party.  Nothing too exciting.  It was so freakin loud, I couldn't hear myself think.  And that's saying a lot because due to my lovely cold, my ears have been plugged for 3 days and I can't hear a thing.  So, until next time, check out the rest of my pictures from the evening.