While our street fashion is being reduced to balaclavas and ski suits, the staff at Hair Fx with partner the Never Alone Foundation are poising to present us with an escape into high fashion.
On Saturday, Jan. 26, A Midwinter Night’s Dream will be the third fashion show put on by the team in The Ambassador Ballroom at Canad Inns Polo Park. The event is a fundraiser for the cancer charity, as well as a showcase of hair design and the boutiques of our city.
“The static in the air is crazy – you can feel it,” says Michael Larocque, founder of Hair Fx and producer of A Midwinter Night’s Dream.
The high-octane fashion show is more of an entertainment variety spectacle with dance segments, a Spray and Pray demonstration, drag queen performances and a musical opening act.
Sure to be a returning hit, the drag queens were a new addition this year, a move Larocque made to incorporate his community into the mix.
“I don’t like the idea that gay people are a separate entity,” says Larocque. And “there’s nothing more fabulous than a drag queen.”
The fashion show arose, predictably, from a conversation between Larocque and his client who works for the Never Alone Foundation.
Because of the extensive network of creative types formed by the hair stylists at Hair Fx and their friends and clients, all of the show’s components are prepared and performed by volunteers. The clothing is sourced from Hush and Shout, Local Shop Awesome, Girl Candy Shop, Nygard, and Divine and Conquer by fashion stylist Jefre Nicholls, plus, he is building a few custom pieces to complete the looks. Makeup is applied by Fine Eyes Makeup Artists, and dancers of Kickit Dance Studio perform.
Panache models are walking the runway for free along with members of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ dance team, Blue Lightning.
This year’s artistic director of the show, hair stylist James Ouellette, even triple-dips and dances in one of the evening’s performances.
Perhaps the most exciting component of the show, the show closer, is the Spray and Pray event. Based on international platform events like platform artist Larocque is no stranger to, the event allows stylists six minutes to create an inspired updo with very little prep.
“We all have a can of hairspray and a basket full of pins, and really we just try to create form,” says Larocque.
And then pray that that form holds.
General admission to the show costs $49 and tickets are available until Jan. 25 at Hair Fx (915 Grosvenor Ave), or online at www.neveralonefoundation.ca.
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Brenlee Coates is a writer and costume assistant on movies. She has a salacious appetite for the arts, fashion magazines, and food. Sawry.