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October 15—High Point — As the inaugural High Point Fashion Week kicks off this week, overlapping with the fall High Point Market, the worlds of home furnishings and fashion couldn’t be more coincidental.
They collide.
“Our tagline is ‘the collision of furniture and fashion,'” explains Shay Johnson, co-founder of High Point Fashion Week. “When designers create a space, they create it like clothes. We dress models the way you dress your home.”
High Point Fashion Week kicks off with a free mixer on Friday night and continues through October 26 with various fashion shows across the city. Events include an adult masquerade fashion show, a children’s fashion show, an emerging designer competition and a fashion boutique show.
So why does the week overlap with the High Point Market when tens of thousands of people descend on downtown High Point during one of the busiest weeks of the year?
Good question – and you’re not the first to ask.
“At first, there were a lot of people who didn’t understand what we were trying to do,” Johnson said. “Why were we trying to do something around the furniture market? But the interior designers and the showrooms were fans, because they understood what we were trying to do, basically, we wanted to show how the two worlds work together.”
Johnson and her co-founder, Giovanni Hood, They came up with the idea of High Point Fashion Week 2020, but it was derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We’ve marketed furniture for two years in different showrooms,” she says. “At the end of the day, for all those furniture people, we saw that there wasn’t much to do while they were here. We both have a background in fashion, so we came up with the idea of doing High Point Fashion Week.”
According to Johnson, Hood began organizing fashion shows in 2014 after receiving a certification as an event planner.
“I was introduced to that world around 2017, and he and I collaborated on hosting children’s shows,” she says. “My background is in fashion merchandising.”
The two have spent the past six months or so lining up sponsors, securing sites for various shows and recruiting models.
“After we started promoting the event, we had two open calls,” Johnson says. “We had over a hundred model auditions and hired 50. Then we put out a call for designers. Over 30 auditioned, and we chose 27.”
Most of the selected models are from the Triad, but some come from as far away as Virginia and Tennessee.
“It’s been a tedious planning process over the last six months, but now we’re ready to give the city something different to look at,” says Johnson.
jtomlin@hpenews.com – 336-888-3579
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