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Fashion Week: Fusion of Fashion and Dance

The Style Pointe fashion show invite intrigued me because I’ve danced for 12 years (ballet, tap, jazz, modern) and have always loved fashion.  Style Pointe melded ballet and modern dancers and choreographers with emerging fashion designers and proved to be an innovative and artful end to my New York Fashion Week.

Just to give you an idea of how the two worlds collided, the dancer/models walked on pointe (tippy toes) all the way up and down the runway with the usual confident blank faced stare.  But at the end of the runway where a model usually poses, the dancer surprised us with her own fantastic flare.  After watching a week’s full of fashion shows, this unique runway strut really caught my attention!  And I couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like if all top models were required to do a little dance-off at the end of their walk.  Pretty entertaining, I think!

This format allowed for you to take in the clothes and appreciate the fluidity and movement so much more so than your standard runway show.  The full production involved having ‘models’ appear on stage far longer than an average runway.  If you think about it, you really only get to see the clothes for a few seconds as it whizzes past you in a fabulous flurry on a normal catwalk.  But here, you got to view it prancing across, flipping above, and leaping to the runway which added a whole other level of excitement and anticipation.

And it seems the fashion world is starting to embrace this fusion of fashion with dance.  Opening Ceremony, hired the New York City Ballet dancers to strut incognito down their runways this season.  Their choreography centered around the idea of models falling down the runway

I love the element of surprise.  NYFW attendees sometimes need to be jolted out of their jaded attitudes.  The veteran fashionistas think they’ve seen it all.  Then they see a model fall (which elicits a group gasp).  Then they see another model fall in the same location.  Then they’re on the edge of their seats hoping it won’t happen again.  Then the next falling model gracefully transitions her fall into an epic dance move!?!?  Clever.  Very clever.

For those of you NY-ers who appreciate dance and fashion yet didn’t get an invite to these NYFW shows, don’t fret.  You can also view this new mix October 2nd-4th at Brookfield Place in Battery Park!  In a special event called ‘Move!’ Visionaire co-founder Cecilia Dean and noted writer David Colman, pairs artists with noted fashion designers to create one-of-a-kind experiences for the public to enjoy.   I don’t know about you but I’ve already marked my calendar for this one!