Cat crawled out from under her dive-bar rock on Saturday night to check out the 5 Degrees Warmer fashion show at, you guessed it, 5 Degrees. Now, this is the first time Cat has been out in LoDo on a Saturday night in a very, very (can’t stress how very) long time. It’s amateur night, filled with giggling girls who can’t hold their liquor. But, Cat wanted to see what kind of environmentally aware designs would walk out on the runway from the likes of The Fabric Lab, Equillibrium Clothing, Hazell, Mademoiselle Modiste, Potential Fashions and Eurotrash Apparel, with hair by Vain Salon and makeup by Glow Agency. Plus, the evening was benefiting StopGlobalWarming.org.
The invite said the show started at 9 p.m. sharp, so Cat was there at 9 p.m. sharp. She should have known better; the show didn’t go off until 10:30 p.m., forcing her to spend that extra time drinking $7 Absolut and tonics and watching an obscene amount of plastic cleavage spill out of low-cut shirts. It was really like ’80s night, but with no irony. Most of the girls were clad in skin-tight spandex dresses and the men were wearing jeans, baseball caps and … wait for it… popped collars. WTF?
There are a couple of problems here: A.) When a club is dress to impress, and the girls are dressing to impress (or at least something approximating that), why do the men get in looking like they’ve just rummaged through the dirty laundry and threw on the least-toxic ensemble? B.) Popped collars?
Cat felt like an anthropologist researching some long-lost culture, because this species is long-dead in the likes the hi-dive, Bar Bar, 3 Kings, Horseshoe Lounge and the other creative-type hangouts she likes to prowl. She figured men in popped collars was an urban myth. After all, no self-respecting man wants to mimic Tom Cruise in Risky Business (even if he did get Rebecca De Mornay). We know where that goes: Yes, there’s an up period (Top Gun) when you think you can do no wrong, even pop your collar, but then things quickly go off the rails (Color of Money, Cocktail, Days of Thunder, Mission Impossible III) all the way down to Oprah’s couch with you ranting like a lunatic and everyone considering a strong and swift intervention. Do not let this happen to you.
Still, the show was worth coming out to see. The floral fashions by Babylon Floral were a new twist, and the girls of CorePower Yoga had the crowd entranced with their pretzel-like maneuvers. One of the other highlights were the new super-cute shift dresses by Eurotrash. Equillibrium and Potential came on strong as always, and The Fabric Lab had a stunning new show finale. (Cat isn’t familiar with the Hazell and Mademoiselle Modiste lines, so she’s not sure which of the remaining outfits belonged to whom.)
Cat put together a highlight reel here for those of you who couldn’t make it. (Cat apologizes that there aren't more pictures from the show; she and the camera had technical difficulties.)
Cat, Deb Henriksen, Tricia Hoke and her man, Mark, and Gino Velardi all finally left when the cocktail waitress informed us that they would to seat the cabana we were relaxing in post show. It seems that another giggling girl and another (rumored) Nugget needed our space. Only too happy to oblige….
