After a Fashion
Oh, who didn't Your Style Avatar see?
By Stephen MacMillan Moser, Fri., March 16, 2012
STYLIN' Yesterday at Style X was an interesting, educational, and entertaining eye-opener. Among the vendors, panels, and runway shows were an avalanche of diverse styling, fascinating points of view, and dazzling runway material on celebrity musicians. So well organized this year, Style X has addressed feedback from last year as well as having taken some new ideas and turned the festival into quite a showcase for the fashion industry. If you missed it yesterday, today is your last chance to see it all. Panels take place 12:50-6pm, followed by the runway show, 6:15-7:15pm. Shopping takes place throughout, so bring some wampum and go home with some amazing new styles of clothing, shoes, accessories, and jewelry from a vast array of vendors. Haute DJ accessories say, "We are directly inspired by and made for musicians, DJs, artists, festival goers, and music lovers everywhere." The behemoth American Apparel section is a labyrinth of clothes and activities offering some terrific deals. Joshua Bingaman, founder of Austin's own Helm handmade boots, offers gorgeous men's footwear that is exquisitely made by hand. Hex boasts a collection that showcases ever-modern iPod nano watchbands and a stylish array of bags and wallets fusing technology and fashion. One of my personal favorites is New York-based Lumete Eyewear, an independent brand of sunglasses for women (and me!) by women. A favorite of style icons such as Ms. Dita Von Teese, Lumete's innovative handmade sunglasses combine sculptural detail, symbolic ornamentation, and ultrafemininity. Museum of Robots creates retro-futuristic housewares and accessories to complement modern living. Phew! Again, if you haven't yet come out, do.
CAST OF CHARACTERS Seen and heard at South by Southwest: of course, Bruce Springsteen, Joe Ely, Robert Plant, Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Lukas Haas, Kevin Connolly, T.I., B.O.B., Matthew McConaughey playing bongos, Billy Corgan, Adrien Brody getting waxed, Jack Black (at the Hotel San José), Bradley Whitford (The West Wing), Jimmy Cliff, Brunson Green (producer of The Help)... Attended Dorito's Jacked with the premier scenester Jacob Stetson and saw Ghostland Observatory, Mystikal, Snoop Dogg (one report says that there was more weed being publically smoked than they'd ever seen), Andy Cohen, Lil Wayne, Kanye (we expect to see Nicki Minaj or Adele or Lady Gaga at Perez Hilton's party – remember when the big rumor was that the special guest would be Madonna?), Eric Burden, and Ann and Nancy Wilson. At the 21 Jump Street afterparty were Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill, and James Franco's little bro, Dave Franco. A plethora of boldfaced names, huh? And those are only the celebrities we recognize. The array of behind-the-scenes bigwigs, producers, directors, and PR people largely went unrecognized by those who are not insiders. Yeah. This is how Austin rolls.
