Swarovski Celebrates SAIC and THE WALK With Bling

This week, Swarovski let the students of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) take full control of the window display at their flagship on the Magnificent Mile. Under the mentorship of the world renowned Nick Cave (who is also chair of SAIC's Fashion Design Department), the students constructed flowers using Swarovksi jewelry, as images to create the fabric and physical pieces for embellishment.

To celebrate the window installation, Swarovski hosted an unforgettable in-store event. As if being surrounded by bling isn't enough to get you excited, there were also cocktails, passed hors d'oeuvres and a DJ added to the mix. Fashion, of course, was the topic of discussion throughout the room as Nick Cave and a few of the design students greeted guests and chatted about the upcoming benefit gala and runway show, THE WALK 2012.
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LAUNCH: Driving Fashion Forward in Chicago's North Shore

When you receive an invite to a charitable fashion event that includes a runway show featuring local boutiques and student designers at a Mercedes Benz dealership, curiosity alone will have you requesting to be added to the RSVP list. 

So, when I received a request for attendance to LAUNCH: Driving Fashion Forward, you know exactly what happened.  As part of my invite, I was also asked to be a judge for the student designer competition which would award the winning designer with a $5000 scholarship. Needless to say, I was most certainly looking forward to this event.

The Autohaus Edens dealership in Northbrook hosted the event. We all know Mercedes Benz vehicles practically sell themselves. But it was the warm personal welcome by the dealership's president, Michael Rosengarden, that impressed me and had me adding Autohaus to my list of best car dealers in the Chicagoland area.

While guests shopped local vendors and mingled over cocktails and light bites, I had a chance to meet some of the Columbia College student designers.  

Chloe Flora, Jessica Atkins, Agnes Hamerlik and Samm Mackin

After finding out that Columbia College's Melissa Gamble was their professor and mentor, I knew these students were quite talented and would present impressive designs on the runway. 

The North Shore boutiques were the first to be featured. The list of stores included Jolie Femme, Three Sisters, Shirise Shoes, Bett's and Frances Heffernan; all of which provided the audience with some of the best trends for Spring/Summer (eg. peplum, floral, graphic prints and colorblocking).

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