Beata Rybka

When imagining a fashion show nobody would ever expect to find hidden treasures outside of the bright lights of a big city, but on the particularly cold night of November 20th the Fierce Fashion Show brought out some fresh, young Boston area designers to look out for. 

Inside the Boston Teacher’s Union, a small building tucked behind the Bayside Expo Center in Dorchester, a fashion explosion was about to occur. Models were bustling backstage while designers put their last finishes on them, Dive FM DJs were spinning tunes while the audience waited impatiently.

Ms. Thea, host and executive producer of Style It Up, hosted the event which opened with a bang, as Status Quo, the Boston-based dance troupe who a year ago made waves on MTV’s Randy Jackson Presents America’s Best Dance Crew, unveiled some of their famous acrobatic stunts.

The performance was followed by designs from local Boston fashion designers, Yanelin Salerno and Jean Carlos Diaz, Diligent Designs, Senecca Sanchez, I Live Kouture, H-Republik, Sparkle T, Koshe3r Tease, Devoir, Greenhaus, Posche and jewelry designer V-Anne, as well as performances from Keisha Dream, Dubz, Jean Carlos, Dive F.M., Pierre A. Lubin, Sledge T-Reps and Suave.

It was quite an interesting mix of fashion for “young and almost daring females” by I Live Kouture, H-Republik’s tee shirts and track jackets, Kosh3r Tease’s flirty, feminine couture designs which featured leopard print and satin mixed with pops of bright color and Devoir’s high-style casual fashions for him and her.

As Dive FM DJs spun top club hits such as Single Ladies and Empire State of Mind, models of all shapes and sizes strutted down the runway with the fiercest of attitudes. Cheryl James, the founder and owner of RegiJames Productions and executive producer of the Fierce Fashion Show, was responsible for recruiting models for the show from the Boston area. It was a breath of fresh air to see real people modeling styles that still look great when someone isn’t six feet tall and 100 pounds. The different designers instructed models to present their clothing differently. Devoir models danced down the runway to present pieces that were a mix of wearability, sass and high class. A model would walk halfway down the runway, stop for two seconds, unzip the jacket she was wearing and then finish strutting down the catwalk. A viewer could never tell what to expect. A man modeling one of the Devoir track jackets and scarf, walked down the runway, stopped at the very front, raised his eyebrow while tugging at the scarf as if to say “Men wearing scarves? When they look this good -- yes they do.” 

It’s often said that what matters is who you are, not the clothes you wear. And while that may be true in any other case, these fashions definitely had the potential to make you believe that if you wear them you will be hotter, you will have more swagger, your eyes will shine brighter and your lip gloss will pop louder. The reality of the models and the originality of the clothing created proximity with the audience. You wanted to wear these designs. 

This was the second annual Fierce Fashion Show, last year’s was also organized and sponsored by RegiJames Productions. “I always wondered how to showcase local talent, models, music and fashion together,” James said. That’s how she came up with the idea for the Fierce Fashion Shows. “Everything about me is about fashion,” she said. When organizing the fashion show, James said that she recruits local talent such as designers from local colleges, like Mass Art and UMass Amherst and local models and music talent from the Boston area, “To showcase the talent of the community.” the profits from the event go directly to sponsors and are used to organize things such as food and toy drives in the community.