Find Ferocious Fashions at a Feral Affair by Kasi White

Move over Minneapolis, Menomonie is making magic in the fashion world with their 2nd annual Pardon Fashion Show dubbed “A Feral Affair”. This feisty fashion phenomenon took place on February 5th, 2011 at The Raw Deal in Menomonie, Wisconsin.

The Raw Deal is a restaurant serving exclusively raw and vegan foods, coffee and specialty beers. The venue provided the perfect stage for the designers to exhibit their fashions. This event was created and organized by UW Stout students Lindsey Baker and Raine Nimmer, in hopes of showcasing local designs and bringing attention to the local businesses around Menomonie, Wisconsin.

Photo by Jeremy Nelson

 A Feral Affair featured the designs of 20 local designers from the Chippewa Valley area, most of whom attend UW Stout in Menomonie, Wisconsin for Fashion Design, with the exception of Adrienne Yancy from Plymouth, Minnesota. Yancy has also showcased her designs at New York's Fashion Week under her label ArielSimone, with designs available on Etsy; how cool is that? The designs featured in the fashion show varied from ready-to-wear to swimwear to formal and wedding dresses; some more avant garde than others.

We arrived to the show at 6:15, with the doors opening at 6:30. It's a good thing we arrived as early as we did since the line ended up wrapping around the building and down the block. The Raw Deal was definitely the place to be in Menomonie on this particular night; I was even told by a Menomonielocal, that she has never seen an event create such a crowd. The 2011 Pardon Fashion Show: A Feral Affair has certainly proved to be the event of the year for Menomonie, Wisconsin.

Photo by Jeremy Nelson

Opening the show in line with the fashion show's title, “A Feral Affair”, a group of models costumed in all black with immense, overpowering wildlife antlers attached to their backsides, crept out and slunk around the runway in an animalistic manner, setting the mood for the rest of the show.

A Feral Affair brought with it many ferocious designs but among those displayed on the catwalk I notice some reoccurring themes that kept popping up throughout the show. The first design detail that I noticed multiple times was asymmetrical shoulders, along with one shouldered garments. In addition to the asymmetry on the shoulders, a lot of outfits featured accentuated shoulder designs, as well as fancy embellishments.

Photo by Jeremy Nelson

The second theme that I noticed throughout the event was the use of natural elements, which I believe played along nicely with the title of the show. Besides the massive use of antlers to start off the show, I also observed the use of feathers in quite a few designs; especially as an accessory in a head piece, in addition to the feathers, there were also a few design which made use of animal print.

As you can see our small fashion community in the Minneapolis area stretches much further than just Minnesota but also into the western side of Wisconsin; which undoubtedly gives us fashionista's a much larger range of what we live for.

Want to know more? Check it out here:

• arielsimone.etsy.com
• rawdeal-wi.com
• www.facebook.com/pages/Pardon-Fashion-Show/164811122562