"Haute Couture comes to Cleveland"

"Haute couture comes to Cleveland"

In a first of its kind fashion show, the Fashion Talks group used the Museum of Art's splendid atrium to their advantage with the arched glass ceiling and majestic stone walls framing its fashion event. Aimon Ali brought her fashion vision to life after moving here a few years ago and elevated the fashion presence in Cleveland to a status that befitted "high fashion" (also known as haute couture).

There were some hiccups though which was to be expected like people not knowing how to get from the museum garage to the event site and the general admission crowd being literally locked out of the atrium with no accurate info as to what was happening. Once inside the seating was great for the VIP's but made it difficult for those sitting further back to get complete views of the models walking the runway which necessitated some attendees to stand around the media pit with their phones to get decent photos.

Most of the attendees dressed appropriately for the occasion but the populace needs to get educated about this. My big question was "where were the local TV cameras?" I saw none even though Fox8 did a preview segment a few days beforehand. I've seen more TV crews at local basketball and football games. If Cleveland wants to enlarge its market presence, an event like this clearly deserves better exposure.

Focusing on the positives, we saw some very creative and diverse design concepts and even a runway mini-drama celebrating Juneteenth. The music was spot on and the models carried themselves with aplomb (look it up). For awhile, I thought I was back in NYC at NYFW, for me a sure sign that fashion has taken a major step forward here in Cleveland.

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