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Tampa Bay Fashion Week takes big risk hoping for big reward

 
(9/17/14, Tampa, FL)   A model walks the runway at the Hilton Tampa Downtown for Tampa Bay Fashion Week's 2014 runway fashion show. [Photo Luis Santana | Times]
(9/17/14, Tampa, FL) A model walks the runway at the Hilton Tampa Downtown for Tampa Bay Fashion Week's 2014 runway fashion show. [Photo Luis Santana | Times]
Published Aug. 31, 2015

TAMPA — Nancy Vaughn sat down at a local leadership luncheon and got a question from Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn that she's still trying to answer.

"He asked me, 'What is the economic impact of fashion in Tampa?' " said Vaughn, a coordinator of Tampa Bay Fashion Week, an annual week of events aimed at showcasing the work of local fashion designers.

"I don't know if we're making an impact," she acknowledged.

Now, things are evolving in pursuit of the answer. For the first time in six years, Tampa Bay Fashion Week won't have a runway show. It's a move that Vaughn hopes might make fashion careers more viable for local designers.

Tampa Bay is a microcosm of the shrinking worldwide fashion industry. Independent designers struggle to get recognition as retailers buy fashion lines associated with celebrities and established brands. The rise of social media and reality fashion competitions such as Project Runway have rapidly increased the number of students studying fashion design worldwide, according to a report from the Business of Fashion.

That doesn't mean, though, that the number of jobs in the industry has kept pace.

"We're a starving industry," said Elizabeth Carson Racker, a local designer and alum of Tampa Bay Fashion Week. "There are so many of us no longer doing collections. It's hard to survive."

Vaughn is trying to change that. In place of the runway show, 10 designers will present Spring/Summer 2016 collections in a four-day trunk show at International Plaza in Tampa on Sept. 16-19. Each collection will be modeled, more like an art installation than a runway show, in a storefront near Neiman Marcus. It will give buyers and customers a chance to see the garments and order or buy on the spot.

The original announcement caught some designers off-guard. Vaughn assured them this opportunity might be more lucrative than a glitzy, fashion show.

"How often has a collection received a lot of love and the designer was able to open a shop in downtown?" Vaughn said. "That's what successful fashion weeks can do. We know cheaper ways to throw a party, if that's what it's about."

Proceeds from the runway show went to funding the events and local charities. Following the death of noted designer and major supporter Kimberly Hendrix in March, "splitting a nickel six ways" to make the show happen seemed impractical, Vaughn said.

Tampa Bay Fashion Week can't be compared with its predecessors in New York, Los Angeles and Miami that draw visitors from around the world. Standout celebrity appearances here have included Kato Kaelin and Crystal Hefner (Playboy Enterprise's founder Hugh Hefner's wife), friends of local celebrity/designer Rhonda Shear.

Good schools produce talented employees and business owners for the surrounding community, said Kate Campbell, academic program director for fashion marketing and management at the Art Institute of Tampa.

But Tampa Bay is lacking. Sanford-Brown College closed in Tampa, taking the area's only fashion design degree program with it. Former students filed a federal class-action lawsuit in 2012 against its parent company, Career Education Corp., alleging the school lied to them and saddled them with useless degrees. The case is ongoing.

"There is a lot of expectation, especially from young designers," Campbell said. "They all think they're going to graduate and leap into a bigger market, and they get slapped down. They get slapped down hard."

Her 50 students don't spend their class time in front of a sewing machine, but they learn all the components of fashion as a business and design principles. They leave Tampa and work as buyers for major department stores or in merchandising for big design houses such as David Yurman.

A harder path is the one Elizabeth Carson Racker chose. She launched her fashion design business in Tampa and found a storefront in northern Hillsborough County. She showed a collection at Tampa Bay Fashion Week in 2014, but didn't generate major sales.

"It's hard for young designers with no big name backing them," said Racker, 33. "It's hard for all designers, actually. Being compared to brand names and celebrities, if you don't have the push or the upfront money for PR representation, you're not going to get the exposure to fix that problem. It's all a big gamble."

Campbell said that without a centralized creative district, the talent drain will continue. Population density and foot traffic keeps the major fashion centers of the world profitable. Tampa, by its very sprawling nature, will struggle without some sort of artificial construct, Campbell explained.

Other fashion event promoters have created St. Pete Art & Fashion, HAUTE Accessories and Christian Fashion weeks to reach different parts of the market. But, with differing agendas, the companies haven't been able to come together.

"We support designers and fashion on various platforms," said Lacey B. Smith, CEO of the Fashion Movement, which hosts HAUTE Accessories Week this Tuesday through Friday. "There are other fashion events around the time of our event, but we cater to a different audience."

Smith's event will bring designers from New York to Jamaica to Tampa to showcase their wares in a runway show and presentation that will allow guests to shop before and afterward.

Campbell said a local fashion industry isn't lacking a customer base.

"There is an astounding amount of money here. It's just the people are into leisure lifestyle," she said. "That's why they are here."

Vaughn hopes the transition to the trunk show is a step on the path to making Tampa Bay a fashion design mecca.

"Fashion is a tree that's growing here," she said. "You can't pick fruit off a tree if it isn't ripe."

Fashion design dominated Dali Hernandez's life in 2012, as she prepared for the Tampa Bay Fashion Week Runway Show.

When the lights faded, she didn't have much to show for it.

"I got some individual orders from people in the crowd, but nothing from boutiques or department stores," said Hernandez, 37, a real estate agent in Tampa. "It was good for exposure and media coverage. But I didn't need that."

The experience was so draining she took a two-year break from fashion altogether. She moved from mortgages to real estate.

She saw the call for 2015 Tampa Bay Fashion Week, but decided against submitting.

"I do have a lot of people find me on the Internet and ask me to mentor their young daughters," Hernandez said. "We need fashion week and a strong fashion community in this area to foster that creativity and nurture it."

Ninety percent of her time these days is spent shopping homes around Tampa.

She saves 10 percent for the swimwear line she has always wanted to create. Hernandez will launch the line in February, with or without a show.

Contact Robbyn Mitchell at rmitchell@tampabay.com or (727) 893-8104. Follow @RMitchellTimes.