The Chicago Fashion Fest started in 2008 by a very talented woman named Michelle Gomez owner of Dynamic Salon & MGO Fashion. Her love and passion for creative design is what gave her the vision to start this fest in a parking lot of a restaurant that has since grown to be a block long.  The festival is held outdoors on Division Street between Damen ave and Wood st. It is a 2 day event starting from Noon to 10pm. Stages are set up on one end for different musical acts and a runway stage is set up on the other end for a high tech fashion show. Food, businesses and clothing vendors are set up along the street to make for a fun and exciting event.

I was lucky enough to get sponsored by My Dream Models agency to participate in the fashion show and as a vendor.

With my good friend Gloria who is an amazing artist – (check out her work Godie Design) we got together to create a boutique-like tent and she did an awesome job helping me put it together.

Here is my intern prepping the shopping bags.

Day 1 – Setup Time

The setup was not as easy as it looks..the first day it rained ALL DAY! errr… I have to admit that I was a bit miserable because we were stuck under the tent the whole day and lots of my things got wet  

But we still managed to keep a smile on our faces

I was very happy on how my tent turned out! We draped hot pink sheer fabric inside the tent with a beautifully cut paper chandelier.

We hung up some pictures of my designs, I had 2 racks of clothes, and we even set up a little fitting room with a mirror.

 

All in all everything turned out great and the Day 2 turned out to be a beautiful day! Bright and sunny that I was able to take my rack out from under the tent where I can actually sit outside and greet the people that walked by and most importantly make some sales! 🙂

I was also interviewed for an online local fashion magazine..pretty exciting!!

Now for the best part! The evening fashion show where I showcased some of my most popular designs

Stage Setup:

  

Backstage with my little helper (my friends daughter) that wanted to walk the runway with me so of course we had to dress alike! She is such a cutie pie!!

Here are the runway pics and as you can see in some of the photos it was still raining from day one but that didn’t stop the show 😀

            

Despite the rain I had a great time and it was a wonderful experience and I hope to do it again next year!

Have you ever done an event like this? If so, what were the hi’s and low’s and how did you handle it? I’d like to know so feel free to leave me a comment below

xoxo
Wanda

art chandelier clothing Fashion fashion fest festival hot pink models rain runway shopping stage setup tent