Frugal Fashion Week's "Burlesque Baby" Event

March 25th marked this year's third event for Frugal Fashion Week. This month's event called "Burlesque Baby" featured sick burlesque performances by Aradia Fitness - North America's leading pole dancing and sensual fitness company- as well as three fashion shows that were all cabaret inspired.

Prior to the show, backstage was like a red bull infused oxygen tank since makeup artists, volunteers(myself included), models and photographers kept the energy alive. As you can plainly see from the picture to the right, makeup artist Tammy Wong and photographer Gwen Brydson rock peace signs and candid faces no doubt.

What better way to kick off an event with some pole dancing fun! Aradia's pole dancing instructors wowed the audience with their impressive pole skills, being the envy of everyone in the room-men included! I was lucky enough to watch the practice run before the event and was honestly amazed (and yep, jealous) of their ability to create such tranquil, muscle-enforced movements. They have to live at the gym to maintain that type of physical strength.

Vintage fashion inspired designers, Yvette Le Roy and Dia Kingly took to the catwalk as the DJ coincided with his vintage music tastes. To the right you'll see the beautiful models strike a pose in Yvette Le Roy's designs. Even though these designs are nice from a distance, up close you could actually see the seams falling apart. The dresses are nice as I said, but a far cry from "haute couture" or even basic retail sales. Oops, did I say that out loud? Sorry...

As dressers hustled to transform each model from Yvette Le Roy to Dia Kingly, the audience was entertained by yet another Aradia instructor- but this time they retired the pole and opted for a chair dance routine.

Dia Kingly's designs included a lot of animal print and black dresses, quite reminisant of the WhoWhatWhenWEARWhy designs. Below is an example, but the light has created an interesting sliver tint, differing from its actual appearance of black fabric.

                            

The best (in my opinion) was of course saved for last, Cabaret Vintage! High, high, high quality vintage clothing was rented from the Cabaret Vintage store located at 672 Queen Street West. Be sure to check out the link provided, there are some really great collections! From little black dress, to vintage RTW, to vintage glamour- the list goes on and on. FFW's main focus was placed on white dresses in particular, creating a classic and elegant feel as the night wore down.

Sadly, this was my last volunteer event with FFW (until August/September, anyway) since I'm moving elsewhere this summer :'( But be sure to check out Frugal's future events-remember, every last Thursday of the month!