NASHVILLE FASHION WEEK 2021 IS HERE
Please Donate $20 To Support
The Nashville Fashion Week Runway Shows + Nashville Fashion Forward Fund
DID YOU KNOW?
The Nashville Fashion Forward Fund of The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee is an endowed fund that supports the next generation of fashion industry professionals with ties to Middle Tennessee by providing a financial award and resources for experential professional development opportunities through an application process each year. Nashville Fashion Week has invested more than $1.3 million into our community since 2011 to provide an annual opportunity for our community to celebrate and showcase local creative talent while providing financial awards to nine Nashville Fashion Forward Fund recipients. Funds are raised through Nashville Fashion Week, our annual five-day volunteer-led and run event, to spotlight Nashville's growing fashion community with an ongoing, sustainable focus for philanthropic support of our creative community through the generosity and support of donors, sponsors and ticket sales with all proceeds benefiting the Nashville Fashion Forward Fund.
WHY DO WE NEED YOUR FINANCIAL SUPPORT NOW?
The devastating tornado and pandemic cancelled Nashville Fashion Week just two weeks before we were to celebrate our 10 year anniversary that featured over 100 community events. When our team came to the difficult conclusion that we still wouldn't be able to safely gather in August of 2020, we planned and executed NFW Digital Experience which garnered 6,874 unique viewers with 132,360 impressions. This was an alternative way to showcase all nineteen Middle Tennessee designers who had originally planned to showcase their runway collections in April. We also realized the residual hurdles that had impacted our fashion community. Despite having no revenue stream or opportunity to sell tickets since April of 2019, Nashville Fashion Week issued each 2020 designer a $500 gift from the Nashville Fashion Forward Fund to help them weather the challenging times, but most importantly, we wanted to remind them to keep going.
HOW DID WE REIMAGINE NFW 2021?
As you know, Covid-19 surged again in the Spring of 2021 which is when we annually celebrate Nashville Fashion Week, but by early summer things were looking up. We felt the weight of the Nashville fashion community - Two years was way too long for our community to be apart, so we knew it was vital to IMAGINE safe ways to showcase and support our fashion community this fall.
Designers who previously applied and were selected to participate their collections at NFW 2020 but were unable to present their collections on the runway due to our pivot to digital programming in 2020 were invited back to participate in NFW 2021. This week, fifteen Middle Tennessee designers will be given an innovative platform to present their collections and brands to a global audience. As part of NFW's new membership to the CFDA Connects inaugural program, our 2021 designer runway collections will launch digitally launch this week, first for VIP Pass holders and later in the week at no charge to the public. This access will include streaming their runway presentation, viewing their collection, lookbook and with the ability to shop their collection on CFDA's Runway360 website.
THE REALITY?
The runway presentations were safely and professionally filmed a closed set last month at OZ Arts Nashville by Middle Tennessee State University’s Marketing and Communications team with production design by Bright Event Productions. The amount of resources, time and dedicated individuals that have contributed efforts to producing the digital programming is astounding. Nashville Fashion Week would not exist, let alone, produce events and activate programming without these vital people and community partners.
FULL TRANSPARENCY
REGARDLESS OF HOW STRONG OUR PARTNERSHIPS ARE OR HOW CREATIVE WE CAN GET WITH RESOURCES AND EFFICIENCIES, WE STILL NEED ADDITIONAL FUNDING TO ENSURE THAT NASHVILLE FASHION WEEK KEEPS GOING.
Nashville Fashion Week 2021 has been re-imagined this fall to safely explore, test and shape the future of Nashville fashion in a meaningful way through strategic partnerships and collaborations with both local and global industry leaders. We look forward to connecting with you this week for an engaging schedule of both digital and live programming.
Nashville Fashion Week needs your financial support and encouragement to continue doing what we do year after year. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation of $20, or more if you can, to further the mission of the Nashville Fashion Forward Fund. Every dollar you give will make a difference within our community for years to come. This is #whynfw!
Thank you for your support!
Team NFW
NASHVILLE FASHION WEEK KICKS OFF TODAY!
Nashville Fashion Week IMAGINE 2021 kicks off this afternoon with a special VIP Tour at Prange Apparel followed by two more VIP events at The Westin Nashville and the Suiting the Sound: The Rodeo Tailors Who Made Country Stars Shine Brighter panel discussion and tour at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum tomorrow. It's not too late to get in on all of these events and experiences. Purchase your VIP Pass NOW!
Join NFW for three FREE Learning Labs, The Intersection of Sound + Style: A Conversation + Museum Tour presented by the National Museum of African American Music and the Shop Nashville Pop Up Market at oneC!TY. A limited number of VIP Passes and tickets to Friday's National Museum of African American Music event are the only tickets available for purchase this year ($35).. All other events are FREE or are included in the VIP Pass..
Our entirely re-imagined schedule is HERE for you to conveniently access. Available tickets to official NFW events can still be obtained at NashvilleFashionWeek.com, but they're going fast!
DAY 1 | TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12
Suiting the Sound: The Rodeo Tailors Who Made Country Stars Shine Brighter Panel Discussion
October 12, 2021, 7 p.m. (Doors open at 6 p.m. for gallery access)
Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
222 Rep. John Lewis Way Sout
Drawing from the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum's exhibit galleries and extensive collection of stage costumes and archival materials, Suiting the Sound: The Rodeo Tailors Who Made Country Stars Shine Brighter — an exhibition curated exclusively for online audiences and free-to-access HERE — examines the dazzling artistry of Western-wear designers whose couture fashions helped to create an indelible image for country music. In partnership with Nashville Fashion Week, the museum will host a program examining the emergence of this unique “rhinestone cowboy” look in the 1940s and 1950s, largely from the tailor shops of Eastern European Jewish immigrants, and how the style has inspired fashion far beyond the stages of barn dances and honky-tonks.
Panelists include acclaimed author, historian and filmmaker Holly George-Warren (How the West Was Worn, Public Cowboy #1: The Life and Times of Gene Autry, Janis: Her Life and Music); modern-day “rodeo tailor” Jerry Lee Atwood, whose bespoke designs for his Union Western label have been commissioned by performers as varied as Americana artist Nikki Lane, Post Malone and genre-blending “Old Town Road” writer-performer, Lil Nas X; and singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Chris Scruggs, who currently plays bass in Marty Stuart’s Fabulous Superlatives band and fronts his own group, the Stone Fox Five. The panel will be moderated by Brenda Colladay, vice president of museum services at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. Free program access at CountryMusicHallofFame.org, and the museum’s YouTube and Facebook. Limited program tickets are still available with museum admission HERE and are also included in the NFW VIP Pass or click the big pink button above to watch the live stream on Tuesday at 7 p.m. for FREE.