Hippie Vamps Stalk West Side

Chrishabana: Woodstock meets Transylvania

Standing in four inch heels for hours under intense heat and scrutiny isn't our Friday fantasy. But apparently the girl models at Gen Art's New Garde fashion party dream differently. And thankfully they do since it allows three upcoming designers to showcase collections in creative, non-runway settings. Housed in the Waterfront Building, this end of the week event drew such notables as Zelda Kaplan and Jay McCarroll as fashion week kicked off.

First on display was Geren Ford's line. In a palette of magenta, sapphire, brown, black, and crème, Ford's clothes were "designed with inspiration from those cinematic moments in life that we don't experience often enough." Perhaps this is why she had her first two models standing up playing cards; a frequent action rarely captured.

After Ford was Form. This New York-based design collective created constructive shapes in blacks and plumes. We loved the clothes, but worried about the hair styles with long twists turned to resemble chic hat lines. Although extensions were probably used, I would definitely chug Advil before this was secured.

Chrishabana's work lay in a blinding light at the end. Weaving blacks, blues, magentas, and red patterns against solid blacks, the designer created a vamp hippie look that was funky, but a tad Bebe.

Later we headed over to Bella for Akiko Ogawa's after party with the MisShapes. Video footage caught up those who had missed the designer's Bryant Park show. We became instant fans. So did Leigh Lezark, who sported a bronze flapper mini-dress from the fall line. According to Style.com, Ogawa's aesthetic for this collection is:

The look a British rock star softened into feminine forms and laced with elements of wabi-sabi, the Japanese aesthetic of 'imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete 'beauty'

After a few vodka tonics we began to experience wabi-sabi's "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete" attributes on a different level.