The Wake

Circling a dimly-lit bar crowded with trendy twentysomethings, listening to talk of spring lines and independent boutiques, I feel a bit lost. Watching Zoolander is about as close as I’ve come to high fashion before this and it’s hard not to think of the vapid, self-congratulating models and designers of that movie as I weave among the denizens of the Twin Cities’ fashion world. The DJ spinning “Relax” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood—was that a deliberate reference?—doesn’t help.

But as I keep talking to the attendees of this Preview Party for MNfashion Week, held at AZIA’s Caterpillar Lounge on April 9, I realize they have nothing in common with Zoolander’s fashion stereotypes. For one thing, not one of them looks a day over 30, and they pass words like “organic” and “localization” back and forth with their business cards. One young model tells me of his plans to go to India to shoot a documentary promoting organic farming there. Another pauses in her catwalk stride across the room to talk about her job as a producer for public television. Clearly, the Twin Cities’ growing fashion scene isn’t just about looking pretty. It’s about celebrating young, up-and-coming designers, being socially and environmentally conscious and giving back to the community.

MNfashion Week’s main event is Voltage: Fashion Amplified, called by model Joy “the funnest event of the year.” The show, now in its fifth year, highlights local music as well as fashion. Part of its stated mission is “providing a national forum for local talent.” This year’s show, on April 24 at First Avenue, features 12 designers and 5 bands.

Tickets for the show are $25 in advance and $30 at the door, but it’s for a good cause. The nonprofit organization plans to set aside this year’s proceeds toward the development of a sewing co-op. The goal of Voltage in general is to provide young local designers with education, resources and opportunities.

“The whole point of Voltage is to pick up a designer and get them up and out,” says designer Laura Fulk. That’s Fulk’s own success story: her designs were the finale of last year’s Voltage show. This year, she hosted her own solo show.

“It’s hard. I don’t know a single designer who sleeps at night,” Fulk says. For her and other designers, though, fashion design has been in their blood for years.

“My mom always sewed, and when I was a kid, I hated it,” Fulk says. “In high school, I got really into the illustration end. I loved the idea of taking a drawing and making it into something physical, something pretty.”

Designer Arwyn Birch speaks similarly about growing up sewing with her mom. For her, she says, getting into fashion “wasn’t an option.”

“I always knew I wanted my clothes a certain way,” Birch, who has been designing “seriously” for about a year and a half, says. “Someone commissioned me to make a pair of pants and I thought, if I can do that, I can do anything.”

Fashion wasn’t every designer’s first choice. Kaja Foat, who designs with her twin sister Zoë, says that the two of them “fell into the business” when they were working as yoga teachers and started making their own yoga clothing. “It wasn’t until two or three years ago that we decided to actually do this as a career,” Foat says.

The sisters’ company now includes bridal and couture lines in addition to active wear. They’re also part of a trend toward green and organic design, using donated and recycled fabrics. “We make them into something completely different,” Foat says.

Foat is one of the designers who speaks excitedly about the growing local presence of Voltage and MNfashion Week. “I’ve lived in so many different cities, and I do feel that Minneapolis has such a look and such a scene that we’re just going to go crazy once we’re on the map,” she says.

That’s the inspiration behind Voltage itself. Anna Lee, described as a “goddess” by one of the models, started MNfashion six years ago. She serves as its executive director and produces the Voltage show. “I got involved because I am a designer and I wanted to see things happen differently for designers in the Twin Cities,” she says. “It’s a community effort that is really starting to take off.”

Since then, what was initially “Fashion Weekend” has expanded to a week, and Voltage has become the largest regional fashion event, self-described on its Web site as “the Midwest’s premier rock and fashion show.” And from what the participants say, Twin Cities fashion is just taking off.

“I wouldn’t really call myself a fashionista,” Anna Lee says. “What’s exciting about what’s going on in Minneapolis is there are so many kinds of fashionistas. You don’t have to be—for lack of a better term—highfalutin.”

As for what local fashion has to offer this season, answers vary. Laura Fulk, whose solo show is called “Suffocate,” collaborated with a painter and a tattoo artist to create designs that were digitally printed onto her fabrics. Arwyn Birch describes this season’s look as “very Mad Men, early ’60s,” saying, “My mind is really focused on bright bold solids, geometric black and whites.” Kaja Foat sees a “punkish vibe all over the board.”

Voltage is about the music as well as the fashion, and this year’s show offers a top-notch slate of local bands: First Communion Afterparty, Mercurial Rage, Gospel Gossip, Lucy Michelle and the Velvet Lapelles, and Maria Isa.

Charles Gehr has worked for two years as the music director for Voltage. It’s his job to choose the bands for the show, and he does so by “spending most of the year going to concerts, listening to music and listening to who people are talking about.”

“We like for the musical styles to be very diverse,” he says of the criteria for choosing bands. “It’s about being fashionable, but ultimately just making sure it’s really good music.”

The bands get to be part of the fashion, too. Birk Gruden, who does screen printing, was hired by Voltage to design pieces for Mercurial Rage, and Voltage stylists help with hair and makeup.

For bands like Maria Isa, the 13-piece group headlining Voltage this year, being part of the show is an honor. “Maria’s been working for the past 20 years,” says Jose Rico, the band’s manager. “This is a culmination of all that work, day in and day out.” Rico says the band jumped at this “opportunity to celebrate fashion.”

The same opportunity appealed to Nick Nguyen, the sponsorship coordinator for Voltage. Nguyen’s family owns the Tea Garden, and he became involved in Voltage through his sister, who owns clothing store Design Collective. “This is promoting the local arts and culture scene, and I want to be part of that,” he says.

That might be the most significant trend of all this Fashion Week: the expansion to include more and more local businesses and news sources as well as designers. “So many more people are participating this year, and there’s lots of networking,” says model Joy. MNfashion works to bring together designers, bloggers, boutique owners and students, and it’s largely their efforts that have brought the Twin Cities fashion scene to the brink of exploding nationally.