Latex clothing will be the least of the ‘alternates’ on display at the very first Alternative Fashion Fest in Liverpool tonight. The event, organized by model, creative director and mom Jane Bellis will hopefully turn out to be a celebration of “many sub-cultures which are usually completely ignored and made to feel inadequate,” Bellis told the UK’s Echo newspaper. Opening with Lynsey Hughes’ fire eating, featuring globally recognized alt. models Kitty Von Krypt and Cherri Pi, the event that was four years in the making, is happening in Liverpool at Circo’s bar down at the Britannia Pavilion Albert Dock this very night. This ‘Fashion Show with a Difference’ boasts alternative couture and heavy tune-age with cocktails and “nibble platters” for those who will stay the whole night.
Jane began her foray into fashion as a model at the age of sixteen. In her twenty years in the business, she has worked as a creative director in the U.S. and Britian for various high couture fashion “weeks” and has mentored young women through the Girls Out Loud organization. In fact, keeping with her ‘giving back’ nature, there are no actual tickets available for the Alternative Fashion Show, attendees simply make a donation for the The Sophie Lancaster Foundation.
Coming on the heels as such mainstream happenings like Milan Fashion Week and speaking as it does to all of us with a need to wear something slightly left of the mainstream in our wardrobes choices, events like the Alternative Fashion Fest are a breath of fresh air and certainly needed as a healthy counter to what we usually see too much press about. The one-day event will hopefully gain enough traction (see enough blogs written about it possibly?) that we will see Jane Bellis right back at the beginning of the summer next year hosting another gathering of the wild, fashionably fetish and sexy couture.