Little Black Dress Fundraiser Returns To Wagon Wheel
September 16, 2016 at 10:50 p.m.
By David [email protected]
The Warsaw Little Black Dress Fashion Show is Thursday at the Wagon Wheel Center for the Arts. The boutique opens at 5 p.m., with the fashion show at 6:30 p.m., and the boutique reopening after the show. All proceeds benefit Access to the Arts for Children and Goodwill Industries.
“This is an opportunity, first of all, for the Wagon Wheel and Goodwill to continue to develop a wonderful, interdisciplinary partnership. We, at the Wagon Wheel, feel that our programs benefit when a broader swarth of the community is aware of everything that we offer. And in partnering with Goodwill, we have an opportunity to raise up not only youth through Acess to the Arts, but also the clients and patrons of Goodwill who benefit from the fundraiser as well,” Julie Parke, development director with Wagon Wheel, stated.
She said it’s an opportunity for all women to see themselves in the fashion that is current and get advice from nationally known stylist Kathy Friend, who oversees the fashion show.
Goodwill Industries of Michiana Inc. Vice President of Mission Advancement Guy Fisher said everyone knows Goodwill from the stores. “But Goodwill is really about job development and workforce development, helping people get back to work,” he said.
The stores – the most visible aspect of Goodwill – help to pay for the job and workforce development.
That model for Goodwill is over 100 years old and started with a Methodist pastor, Edgar J. Helms, who was working with a congregation in Boston. The pastor realized the need for improved job skills, so he came up with the notion “that it’s better to teach a man how to fish than to provide fish for him,” Fisher explained.
He said Goodwill has morphed over the years, but at the heart of what it does, it’s still about helping people and helping communities.
“Partnering with the Wagon Wheel is just a natural offshoot of that. We were so excited when Julie got ahold of us the other year to be able to do this because we had been in Warsaw for quite awhile, had built the new store, had added the Career Center, and we felt like this was another step along the way of being able to support Warsaw and what was going on here,” Fisher said.
Parke said some of Wagon Wheel’s board members had attended another Little Black Dress event and were really excited about how to bring that to the Center’s venue.
“This year, Goodwill wanted to expand the boutique so we have moved the boutiques to the ballrooms at the Wyndham Hotel,” she said. There will be boutiques in the Wagon Wheel lobby and at the hotel, with Elliott’s providing golf carts to transport people from one building to the other.
On the boutiques, Fisher explained that Goodwill Michiana covers 16 counties from Kosciusko County over to Chicagoland. In that area, it has 23 retail locations that it operates.
“So you can imagine the amount of donations that come into our stores and into our collection boxes. At all of stores, we take the best merchandise that comes in and pull it off to the side and we warehouse it for our Little Black Dress events,” he said.
Goodwill hosts three Little Black Dress events each year – one each in Warsaw and Merrillville – and a signature event in South Bend in the spring. All the high-end items that are donated and warehoused are then brought to the Little Black Dress events and sold.
“It’s not your run-of-the-mill clothing that you would find on the store racks right now at Goodwill that’s coming to this event. It’s the really good stuff,” Fisher said.
The clothes modeled on the stage during the event will be sold in the boutique after the fashion show.
Nationally known wardrobe stylist and image consultant, and president of Style & Image Institute, Kathy Friend is the fashion show producer.
“In fashion this season, just like in seasons past, what goes around comes around, so we’re seeing a pretty big ’70s, ’80s influence in trends, so you’ll definitely see that on the runway,” she said.
Some of the “hot” colors this season include pumpkin spice, which Friend said is “on the brown side of orange,”?and a lavender-like color called “Bodacious” that’s like a “pinky lavender,” so those will be on the runway, too.
“We always try to bring in some of the hot trends, some of the things you read about in fashion magazines, and show those on the runway,” Friend said.
What she finds interesting is that people don’t think those trends and colors can be found in thrift shops.
“Many times you can find those much more abundantly at a Goodwill store than you can at the mall, just because what goes around comes around in terms of trends,” she said.
Parke said it’s not just for women. Of the 23 models in the fashion show, four are men.
1st Source Bank and WSBT 22 are event sponsors. John Elliott, a trust officer with 1st Source and a board member of Goodwill, will be one of the “celebrity” models in the fashion show. Other celebrity models will include Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer, Warsaw Community Schools Superintendent Dr. David Hoffert, WSBT meteorologist and Warsaw graduate Matt Rudkin and Willie 103’s Teri Armstrong.
Friend said the trends follow much more strongly with the women and with women there’s just more options.
“With the guys, you’re going to see everything from suits and ties. We’ve got a couple of guys to wear tuxes. We’ve got jeans and leather motorcycle jackets,” she said.
Tickets are $30 through the Wagon Wheel box office, online or at the door, and there will be appetizers and a cash bar. Shoppers at the boutique will get 50 percent off.
For ticket and event information, call 866-823-2618.
“We’re really looking forward to a fun event,” Parke said. “The opportunity for us to work with Goodwill has, I think, made both organizations a little bit stronger. It’s given us a new way to look at things, and we stretch our perceptions of what an arts partnership should look like. I think Goodwill has stretched its perceptions of what a human services partnership should look like, and we’ve become fast friends.”
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The Warsaw Little Black Dress Fashion Show is Thursday at the Wagon Wheel Center for the Arts. The boutique opens at 5 p.m., with the fashion show at 6:30 p.m., and the boutique reopening after the show. All proceeds benefit Access to the Arts for Children and Goodwill Industries.
“This is an opportunity, first of all, for the Wagon Wheel and Goodwill to continue to develop a wonderful, interdisciplinary partnership. We, at the Wagon Wheel, feel that our programs benefit when a broader swarth of the community is aware of everything that we offer. And in partnering with Goodwill, we have an opportunity to raise up not only youth through Acess to the Arts, but also the clients and patrons of Goodwill who benefit from the fundraiser as well,” Julie Parke, development director with Wagon Wheel, stated.
She said it’s an opportunity for all women to see themselves in the fashion that is current and get advice from nationally known stylist Kathy Friend, who oversees the fashion show.
Goodwill Industries of Michiana Inc. Vice President of Mission Advancement Guy Fisher said everyone knows Goodwill from the stores. “But Goodwill is really about job development and workforce development, helping people get back to work,” he said.
The stores – the most visible aspect of Goodwill – help to pay for the job and workforce development.
That model for Goodwill is over 100 years old and started with a Methodist pastor, Edgar J. Helms, who was working with a congregation in Boston. The pastor realized the need for improved job skills, so he came up with the notion “that it’s better to teach a man how to fish than to provide fish for him,” Fisher explained.
He said Goodwill has morphed over the years, but at the heart of what it does, it’s still about helping people and helping communities.
“Partnering with the Wagon Wheel is just a natural offshoot of that. We were so excited when Julie got ahold of us the other year to be able to do this because we had been in Warsaw for quite awhile, had built the new store, had added the Career Center, and we felt like this was another step along the way of being able to support Warsaw and what was going on here,” Fisher said.
Parke said some of Wagon Wheel’s board members had attended another Little Black Dress event and were really excited about how to bring that to the Center’s venue.
“This year, Goodwill wanted to expand the boutique so we have moved the boutiques to the ballrooms at the Wyndham Hotel,” she said. There will be boutiques in the Wagon Wheel lobby and at the hotel, with Elliott’s providing golf carts to transport people from one building to the other.
On the boutiques, Fisher explained that Goodwill Michiana covers 16 counties from Kosciusko County over to Chicagoland. In that area, it has 23 retail locations that it operates.
“So you can imagine the amount of donations that come into our stores and into our collection boxes. At all of stores, we take the best merchandise that comes in and pull it off to the side and we warehouse it for our Little Black Dress events,” he said.
Goodwill hosts three Little Black Dress events each year – one each in Warsaw and Merrillville – and a signature event in South Bend in the spring. All the high-end items that are donated and warehoused are then brought to the Little Black Dress events and sold.
“It’s not your run-of-the-mill clothing that you would find on the store racks right now at Goodwill that’s coming to this event. It’s the really good stuff,” Fisher said.
The clothes modeled on the stage during the event will be sold in the boutique after the fashion show.
Nationally known wardrobe stylist and image consultant, and president of Style & Image Institute, Kathy Friend is the fashion show producer.
“In fashion this season, just like in seasons past, what goes around comes around, so we’re seeing a pretty big ’70s, ’80s influence in trends, so you’ll definitely see that on the runway,” she said.
Some of the “hot” colors this season include pumpkin spice, which Friend said is “on the brown side of orange,”?and a lavender-like color called “Bodacious” that’s like a “pinky lavender,” so those will be on the runway, too.
“We always try to bring in some of the hot trends, some of the things you read about in fashion magazines, and show those on the runway,” Friend said.
What she finds interesting is that people don’t think those trends and colors can be found in thrift shops.
“Many times you can find those much more abundantly at a Goodwill store than you can at the mall, just because what goes around comes around in terms of trends,” she said.
Parke said it’s not just for women. Of the 23 models in the fashion show, four are men.
1st Source Bank and WSBT 22 are event sponsors. John Elliott, a trust officer with 1st Source and a board member of Goodwill, will be one of the “celebrity” models in the fashion show. Other celebrity models will include Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer, Warsaw Community Schools Superintendent Dr. David Hoffert, WSBT meteorologist and Warsaw graduate Matt Rudkin and Willie 103’s Teri Armstrong.
Friend said the trends follow much more strongly with the women and with women there’s just more options.
“With the guys, you’re going to see everything from suits and ties. We’ve got a couple of guys to wear tuxes. We’ve got jeans and leather motorcycle jackets,” she said.
Tickets are $30 through the Wagon Wheel box office, online or at the door, and there will be appetizers and a cash bar. Shoppers at the boutique will get 50 percent off.
For ticket and event information, call 866-823-2618.
“We’re really looking forward to a fun event,” Parke said. “The opportunity for us to work with Goodwill has, I think, made both organizations a little bit stronger. It’s given us a new way to look at things, and we stretch our perceptions of what an arts partnership should look like. I think Goodwill has stretched its perceptions of what a human services partnership should look like, and we’ve become fast friends.”
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