Nashville Fashion Week in the Works

Some of Nashville’s most style-minded citizens want to put this city on the fashion map. The first-ever Nashville Fashion Week is scheduled for the spring.

The concept of a week-long series of runway shows and fashion industry networking was developed and defined in places like New York, Paris and Milan. In recent years, fashion weeks have popped up in more regional style-centers, too, like Portland, Miami, and now, Nashville.

Organizer Cindy Wall there’s enough of a fashion scene here to justify organizing an entire week of events.

“You know, we’re not New York, we’re not 7th Avenue, but definitely a strong community. People designing clothes of course, but also designing jewelry, printing fabrics-you name it, if you can put it on your body, there’s someone in Nashville making it.”

Wall says the music business has helped drive the development of a local fashion industry. As she puts it, every musician’s stage and red-carpet clothing have to come from somewhere. Beyond that, Wall says the city has independent boutiques and small designers with a distinctive style that’s started to garner attention.

“Nashville Fashion Week is not going to invent fashion in Nashville. It’s already here, all over the place, it’s really a way to celebrate it.”

Celebrate it and organize it. Wall says Nashville already has a fair number of runway shows and smaller, private displays called trunk shows, but they happen sporadically through the year, on a one-at-a-time basis. Fashion Week works on the idea that all the designers can draw a larger audience of potential customers when those shows take place on a consolidated schedule.

Wall says there will also be workshops for store owners and designers, and a monetary award for a promising young designer.