Local fashion show sparks visions of what could be in Wheeling
With Wheeling at a crossroads between what was and what could be, a first-of-its-kind Friendly City fashion show saw attendees dream of a brighter future for the city.
WHEELING, W.Va. – Once a city renowned as a transportation hub filled with iron, steel, glass and furniture factories, Wheeling – like other rust belt cities – has struggled to recover from decades of deindustrialization and depopulation.
In recent years, Wheeling has seen the sparks of renaissance assemble as state, federal and private dollars have begun to flow, paving the way for infrastructure improvements and new building development and revitalization projects.
Still, Wheeling sits at a crossroads unsure which path to take towards its future.
As the city – and its residents – decide what ‘next’ looks like, a group of young entrepreneurs and leaders hopes that ‘next’ can include a robust arts scene, including fashion designers.
Wheeling Fashion Week…
Founded by Emily Rouse and supported by Spencer Porter, Alex Panas, Lisa Bronchik and Ashley Sutton, Wheeling Fashion Week began as an idea months ago, culminating in a week of events designed to highlight the fashion ecosystem of the region.
“We’re thrilled to launch Wheeling Fashion Week as a platform to spotlight our community’s vibrant hub for fashion,” said Rouse, chair of the event’s organizing committee. “It’s a showcase that we are seeing in more cities across the country, not just New York and Los Angeles, and Wheeling has plenty of people making their own contribution to the industry.”
Beginning June 1, Wheeling Fashion Week held events with Ms. West Virginia, a film screening and panel discussion, a meet-and-greet and a pop-up event. The week culminated in a fashion show Saturday, June 7, featuring clothing from designers, boutiques and retails from Charleston, Wheeling and Pittsburgh.
And that fashion show – hoping to aid in redefining what Wheeling is as a city – was hosted in the ever-fitting Waterfront Hall, a building that once housed industry and businesses since 1873 before being renovated and opened as a bar, restaurant and event center in Wheeling.
Flaunting fashion in Wheeling…
VIP ticket holders braved a muggy atmosphere blanketed by Canadian wildfire smoke to strut their stuff and show off on their outfits. Wheeling Free Press spoke to some attendees to get their reactions to what was most of their first times on a red carpet or at a fashion show.
Spencer Porter, a member of the event’s organizing committee, sported a luxurious cocktail dress made from refurbished denim waistbands created by Charleston designer Bebot. Accentuating the outfit was a pair of long, white, heeled boots and a pair of “truck stop special” sunglasses.
“Wheeling is alive. Wheeling has energy, just bursting with young people, creativity. [I am] so excited to be a part of this revitalization,” Porter said of the event. “We’re so excited to be part of this reckoning.”
Next on the red carpet was Kylan, founder of Rinnifus Rae Designs. She began sketching designs at the age of 5. Now 12-years-old, Kylan found herself in Wheeling’s first fashion show.
Kylan came with six friends in tow who sported outfits of mustard yellows, bright reds and deep purples each modeled after a different character in the classic board game Clue.
“I’m a dancer and [Clue] was one of the dances that we did,” Kylan said. “So I took that as my inspiration and I used Goodwill and Once Upon a Child clothes and I upcycled them to make these outfits that we have here today.”
Wheeling natives and mother-daughter duo Libbi Gramby and Devon Snider were next. When they aren’t strutting down a red carpet, they’re better known for their work at Table 304, a beloved coffee shop, catering business and event space.
Gramby sported a chic, all-white pantsuit with a ruffled collar drawing screams of “mother!” when she first arrived. Snyder dawned a 70s themed outfit with a denim ‘Canadian tuxedo’ styled with a flowy white top, orange handbag and a coffee sack vest – an homage to her barista work.
“I just wanted to be comfortable in my body at the age of 51, so I found an outfit that made me feel good and still felt chic and thought would be fitting for my first fashion show,” Gramby said of the outfit. “I was very nervous about the all white, but I’m loving it.”
Other outfits on the red carpet featured black and white gowns inspired by Wheeling’s Victorian buildings, floral headpieces with old-world embroidered floral smocks, emerald green cocktail dresses dotted with homegrown flowers and lots and lots of tulle, chiffon, lace and organza.
Walk the runway…
After a cocktail hour and live painting from Mindi Yarbrough Langford of Wild Heart Mindi, the main event kicked off. Dozens of models sported designs from nine designers as an audience of over 150 people looked on. They smiled, gasped and cheered as outfits ranging from streetwear to the everyday, from high fashion to the avant-garde, made their way down the runway.
Bebot, who we met earlier with designs featured on the red carpet, showed off styles switching between gorgeous, flowy white gowns and nightwear to highly detailed, complex denim dresses, skirts and pants. A mix of modern and contemporary, Bebot’s designs embodied a new age of fashion many in the crowd were unaware existed in West Virginia.
Switching to the more everyday, Payton’s Pretties Consignment Boutique – who serves women’s clothing needs at their Bethlehem store – showed off leaf-printed gowns, a floral pantsuit and exquisite dresses perfect for proms, dinners, weddings and more.
Mia D’Amico transcended fashion genres with their sometimes-gothic, sometime-country looks. Beginning with a black leather outfit two-piece matched with ruffled leather caps, followed by a denim-on-denim outfit and upcycled denim bag and ending with a chic, gingham shirtdress, Mia D’Amico served a range of looks for the partier, courtier, cowboy or blue-collar employee.
In all, the show was an experience many said exceeded expectations.
Moving Wheeling forward and a note from the editor…
If you were to pose the question, ‘what is Wheeling to you,’ to ten people on the street, you’d be lucky to get just ten different answers. It’s a city breathing its last breath or one being resuscitated. It’s a city with an eye towards the future or one too tied to its past. It’s a progressive city with a vision or a corrupt one lucky to be puttering along.
To the founders, designers, models and attendees of Wheeling Fashion Week, their answer to that question seems pretty clear: Wheeling should be a city of events and the arts – including fashion – among any number of other niche, hyper-local scenes to carve out a unique industry to keep this city on the map. That bore out in the clientele of a three-times sold out fashion show that included the young and the old, the newcomers and the townies, and the powerful and the everyday.
Whether this vision is truly the future of Wheeling is still unclear.
Many in this city see any change as a bad thing. They yearn for the times of smokestacks and blue-collar jobs again filling Wheeling; but, that desire for reindustrialization after decades of decay is unlikely in today’s modern world. And, those harkening to “old-times” appear to have done little to actually bring back that past they so dream of.
Instead, it’s the people involved with Wheeling Fashion Week and other ‘inaugural’ events the city has hosted over the last few years who continue to push the narrative towards something new…something potentially better. They’ve opened businesses, brought new residents to the city and put Wheeling on the map not as a declining city, but a reviving one.
And, for the sake of this town, may their work not go unrewarded.