Is Seattle Equipped to Maintain a Fashion Week?

Me, addressing the crowd at a Seattle Fashion Week networking event back in 2015.

The short answer is "yes". The long answer is a bit more complicated. As I've been slowly editing how I want to re-enter the fashion community after my COVID-long hiatus, I thought back to my time as Lead Graphic Designer and then Marketing Director for Seattle Fashion Week between 2014 and 2016.

After graduating from The Art Institute of Seattle with dreams of landing a job as a graphic designer for Vogue Magazine, volunteering my time to a seemingly prestigious fashion organization sounded like a great idea. However, while working with the group allowed me to build my network and my design skills for two years, I eventually stepped back from Seattle Fashion Week feeling burned out and unaccomplished.

Looking back on my time now after eight years of distance, I can better articulate why that version of SFW was sustainably unsuccessful. 

• The team was led by a CEO who maintained a bottleneck management style over every decision that needed to be made to move forward. 

• Once the CEO position changed hands, there was a growing disconnect regarding team communication. 

• There was more concern with looking successful by bringing on more volunteers than needed instead of appointing a specific handful of experienced professionals ready to get the work done.

As of today’s publishing date, as far as I can tell, Valata Foundation owns the trademark for Seattle Fashion Week. Valata Foundation, created by Katie Kunda, a former colleague during my time at SFW, is a 501(c)3 organization “designed to enable the greater Seattle area’s aspiring fashion professionals to present their skills, talents, and products to the world.” I was asked to join this group when it was founded in 2018 by one of its members, but I declined because the overall mission of the organization was too vague. It was more of the same language that encouraged me to naively join Seattle Fashion Week four years prior. 

While the organization shared numerous posts on Instagram about calls for sponsors, designer submissions, model castings, and even Seattle Swim Week, to my knowledge, the only event that seems to have actually happened was the Pop Up Style Market & Networking Event on June 24, 2022, according to their Instagram account.

I attempted to reach out to the Valata Foundation board members currently listed on their Facebook page to ask for more insight into the transition in management and why their October 2022 Seattle Fashion Week event was canceled. Unfortunately, most board members had private social accounts so contacting them wasn’t an option. The two I did manage to send messages to didn’t respond.

After my time with Seattle Fashion Week, I held the Communications Chair position for The Fashion Group International - Seattle Region from 2017 to 2019. While my time there was voluntary as well, I was able to hone my skills as an event marketing specialist as I assisted in hosting a total of 30 events for the group that supported local fashion professionals through networking, lectures, mentorship, and pop-up events.

With all that experience and a lingering desire to witness a thriving fashion week in Seattle, I outlined a fresh visual concept for Seattle Fashion Week in a Google Doc.

An Overview of the Concept (TLDR):

• If you’re active in the fashion community, you know exactly why “Seattle Fashion Week” has negative associations. To give the event a fresh start, I changed the name to “Fashion Row Seattle”.

• The team behind the event would work from May to October to organize the event and would be compensated equally for their efforts.

• The event would be hosted annually in mid-September to give designers time to develop collections for the runway so it wouldn’t overlap with NYFW. Plus, Seattle weather in February isn’t ideal for events.

• The event would run from Sunday to Saturday, featuring pop-up shops at partnering retailers in different neighborhoods to allow designers to increase their revenue, a press party to connect designers with journalists and buyers, tech brand activations, fashion-related lectures, and a designer runway show.

• Attendees can select between VIP access (exclusive event invites and discounted shopping opportunities) and general admission. Each ticketing level would offer rideshare vouchers to remove transportation barriers to attending their desired events.

• Overall, the event should connect local talent to the large, fashion- and tech-based companies that reside in the city, instead of trying to attract more prominent brands from other fashion weeks.

While writing this article, I came across a piece by Vogue Business sharing details about London Fashion Week’s upcoming summer edition. The event, running from June 7 - 10, “will include exhibitions, panel discussions, cultural events, and catwalk shows with a focus on menswear”. The event will collaborate with the British Fashion Council, South Asian culture, and queer culture, each with their own focused fashion subject. If London can organize an event celebrating the individuals who drive the industry, why can’t we?

As for now, fashion lovers in the Pacific Northwest looking for alternatives to Seattle Fashion Week may be required to travel. 

Fashion Week at The Bellevue Collection

Take a quick drive across Lake Washington where The Bellevue Collection hosts Fashion Week at The Bellevue Collection every September at Hyatt Regency Bellevue. Unfortunately, you won’t find any local designers featured on the runway. The Independent Designer Runway Show (IDRS) was discontinued in 2018. The event currently consists of two fashion shows, The Trend Takeover Runway Show and The Collective Runway Show. Both shows only feature looks styled with high-end brands from the shopping center across the street. While it’s a great marketing tool for The Bellevue Collection, the fashion shows don’t currently support local designers. 

I managed to connect with Jennifer Leavitt, Vice President of Marketing at The Bellevue Collection, to ask why IDRS was discontinued. Here’s what she said”

“At that time, we found that we were struggling to find enough candidates who could make the commitment to the time and effort required to go through the full process.  It also requires a large commitment from industry members for the mentoring process.  We continue to try to support independent designers when we can. We recently did a showcase with Deyonte Weather for our Black History Month program and his work looked fabulous in the center. ”

There may be a future opportunity for student engagement within Bellevue Fashion Week, but the details are still being worked out behind the scenes.

Vancouver Fashion Week

Attend Vancouver Fashion Week three hours north of Seattle in April and October every year. Three shows are held daily over six days featuring local designers. I had the opportunity to attend the Saturday night show for the first time and I might plan to attend a future round of shows to get a fuller experience. Click here to view my review of the F/W 2024 show.

FashioNXT

Find FashioNXT three hours south of Seattle every October. Enjoy three days of cocktail parties, pop-ups, and runway shows highlighting U.S.-based and international fashion designers. I took a road trip to Portland in 2017 to check it out for myself. 

Seattle sits between two other cities that have successfully produced fashion weeks for years. With Seattle's unique fashion history, it's an ideal city that just needs the right people in place with a clear vision of utilizing the reach of large fashion and tech brands in our backyard to highlight the talented fashion professionals who call Seattle home.

If you were connected to SFW back in the day, share your experience in the comments and why Seattle should (or shouldn't) have a fashion week.

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