My first fashion week - thanks, Portland!

My first fashion week - thanks, Portland!

• 9.20.2013

I got to attend this year's Portland Fashion Week - the 10th anniversary, and a ton of awesome local talent and businesses represented, along with us bloggers. I was part of the Portland Fashion Week Blogger Style Collective, a great group of local bloggers - fashion, style, and DIY!

Fellow Style Collective bloggers Sam and Jenni

I actually have this little policy for myself wherein I purposefully don't look at high fashion/runway collections. I see them in my magazines every once in a while, but I usually look away from the models and extreme looks and focus on the other parts of the page. I've always loved fashion and clothes, but the stuff on the runways isn't usually stuff anyone actually wears, so it's not useful for me in picking out my fave trends for the season; rather, it seems like a specialized type of trendy art, shown off on extremely unhealthy-looking very young women and it makes me sad to look at it. I think about our culture and women's body issues and the demand for luxury goods and clothes that I know I don't need. I don't mean to rant here, no hard feelings for the high fashion industry, really, but it's not something I'm very interested in most of the time.

But, PFW is a little different. The show I went to featured models (men and women) varying in age, race, and shape (although they were all very tall!!). And, as this was the Ready to Wear show, most of the clothing looked very wearable! It's way more fun for me to look at silhouettes and styles that I might actually wear or make sometime.

I took a million pictures from this Ready to Wear show, but not all of them turned out and it would be hard to capture it all in photos, anyway! We bloggers got front row seats next to some fabulous local celebs (in my book) like Lisa Warninger of Urban Weeds. She's the sweetest. It was so super cool that we got to hang in the VIP tent and sit in chairs with our names taped to them!

So here are a few faves from the ready to wear show, a few of the designers from the night!

Fall fashion and suiting... (the big groups are the finales)

Fun knits and neons...

Some super pretty formal wear with a late 70's Charlie's Angels vibe!

Dramatic!!

Those are just a few of the fab designs we got to watch parade by!

PFW On the Run (trunk shows, parties) is still going on through tomorrow, the 21st, so if you're looking for something glam and exciting and inspiring to do this weekend, have fun!! ;)

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