After a Fashion
Life renews, and so does Oscar Wilde
By Stephen MacMillan Moser, Fri., Feb. 17, 2012
FAVORITE QUOTE
"True friends stab you in the front." – Oscar Wilde
THE SEAMSTRESS' DELIGHT
The already open new fabric store the Fabricker (4631 Airport Blvd. #119, www.fabricker.com) is the talk of the design community, and it is having a grand opening party not at its store but at Spider House's 29th Street Ballroom on Fri., Feb. 24, 7-10pm. The Fabricker offers silks, denims, laces, knits, and linens not otherwise available in Austin; selections from the textile collections of Versace, Liberty of London, Anna Sui, Carolina Herrera, and Ralph Lauren; and rare and vintage fabrics. Prices range from $5 to $25 per yard. "Real-size" local designer SavannahRed debuts her latest collection exclusively to Austin's fashion audience at this show before it launches in Seattle. Totally Consensual (aka the ladies of Hip Hop Hooray on KOOP-FM) will spin electro-hip-hop grooves. Fashion Passion Visuals will be VJ'd by Austin's own ACLM.
DON'T FORGET
Buy your tickets now for the Austin Children's Shelter's New Wave Eighties Dance Party, Friday, Feb. 24, 8pm-12mid (with an afterparty until 2am), at Speakeasy on Congress. Tix are $20 general admission and $100 VIP. It's always a fun party and always fun to see people's definitions of an Eighties look, especially from those who were born in the Eighties ... or even worse, the Nineties! So pull out the banana clips, the elf boots, crazy hair, torn sweatshirts, and garish colors for a riot of amusement. See www.austinchildrenshelter.org for more.
LIFE'S RENEWAL
Inspecting the Texas mountain laurel that I gave to my sister a few years ago, I saw to my utter dismay that there was a cluster of blossoms about to explode into its apex of beauty and fragrance. There was only one on the whole tree, but damn, that felt good. I've always been interested in gardening, but it wasn't until my sister and mother bought their house out here in Manchaca that I began to work with my mom in the yard. She'd been gardening in Seattle for decades, but gardening in Seattle is a far cry from gardening in Austin. There was a time when we had a green lawn everywhere. Now, most of it is patches of dead grass and a lot of really bad dirt. After such a torturous summer, we've had such a mild winter that even the impatiens survived. But those plants that died, I'll never plant them again. I want lush foliage year-round, like aspidistra, like oleanders, like this monkey grass that can tolerate anything. I prefer evergreen shrubs and trees to annuals. So waiting two years to see a cluster of blossoms is akin, to me, to having a baby. I'm a proud papa. We have a wealth of evergreen irises that do not die back in the winter and are just beginning to open their white blossoms; daffodils and bluebonnets are already showing in the front yard and the amaryllis has bloomed. In darker times, I wasn't so sure I'd see this spring, but I've been waiting patiently without realizing it was already happening everywhere in the yard.
REALLY?
Did you know that Austin has an arts high school? I didn't, and it's been here six years. The Austin School for the Performing and Visual Arts was established in 2006, and its outreach program, Connections, has served over 1,400 students through public schools and other student groups. The school is having a show called the Art of Fashion, a fundraiser for student scholarships, on Friday, March 2, 7pm, at the Long Center. Featuring original music and dance, professional models will show off student work as well as the designs of Linda Asaf and other boutiques. The incredibly gorgeous Patricia Vonne will emcee, and there will be a red carpet and cocktails. See www.theaustinschool.org for more info.
