The 2012 MN Fashion Week: Styles for Smiles
The 2012 MN Fashion Week kicked off on Saturday, February 18th, with one of the hottest annual shows in town: Styles for Smiles. The event featured a runway show, pop-up boutique, and free mini-makeovers. The purpose? Raising money for Project Healthy Smile, an organization bringing oral health education and dental supplies to impoverished and underprivileged children globally.
Don’t expect any groundbreaking trends this year, but bold prints and bright colors are back! Spring and summer will focus less this year on 80’s neon flashbacks and more on primary color solids. Bottoms are daring and bold red and blue skinny jeans are in – a trend most recently popularized by J.Brand last year. But look for more than just red and blue…colors like yellow and green will be coming soon.
Trends:
• Breezy. Local designers show breezy silk tops, patterned with sharp floral prints. These daring tops are matched with subtle nude miniskirts and leggings – perfect for a hot summer. (look at how those red skinny’s sizzle)
• Jumpers! I haven’t been a fan of jumpers in the past, but they’re growing on me. This year the jumper is back and I love them as shorts!
• Accessorize. Accessories like headbands, leather wrist cuffs in multiple colors, and the return of the BIG sunglasses also made their stamp at Style for Smiles.
• Bottom Line. Expect to see a fashionably accessorized breezy bohemian trend emerge this summer.
Local designers are the exclusive providers for fashion at Style for Smiles. Their collections can be found at boutiques like KoKoon, Local Motion, and Primp.
The Cause
Styles for Smiles is Project Healthy Smile’s (PHS) largest fundraiser of the year. Its purpose is to bring attention to a crucial worldwide need: oral health education and dental supplies for impoverished and underprivileged children.
Local fashion stylist Hollie Mae co-founded the organization with Michelle Patterson in 2009. Traveling to children’s advocacy organizations and orphanages worldwide, PHS had added to its mission children in Haiti, Southeast Asia, and is expanding its reach to Uganda in 2012. Oral health education focuses on the importance of hygiene such as brushing and flossing, but also stresses diet’s impact to oral health.
Shockingly there are thousands of children who have never seen or heard of a dentist, or who don’t know what a toothbrush or what toothpaste is? PHS is changing that, and along with education they supply dental materials to these children and replenish them every 6 months. To find out more information or how you can help visit www.projecthealthysmile.org. For fashion pictures and more information from the founders themselves watch the video below!
