Where It’s At: What the Big Sur fashion show owes to ‘Zoolander’

Wildly creative in all aspects, the Big Big Big Sur Fashion Show is one of the Central Coast’s most anticipated alternative style events of the year. Taking place Thursday for the first time at the Big Sur River Inn, the sold-out show has made a giant leap forward in its ability to treat more people to the whimsical drama and designs made of anything but fabric.

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The event, produced by Henry Miller Memorial Library, was born out of a desire to bring the usually widely dispersed Big Sur residents together in love and support for something fun, in contrast to the locals supporting one another in the aftermath of natural disasters and life struggles.

The event’s eighth year is a time for its own metamorphosis, illustrated through the just-finished documentary “From Ashes to Art.”

The 2008 Basin Complex Fire forced the evacuation of the entire coastal community for two weeks. Upon returning to the ash-laden and desecrated Big Sur Valley, fashion show founding partners Sara Carr and Lisa Goettel sat sipping pints at Fernwood Resort’s bar.

“While Sara was evacuated, she had one film she watched over and over again, ‘Zoolander.’ That’s really where her idea sprang from,” said Lynette Tolentino, this year’s newly anointed creative director, and someone who has been part of the event since its inception. She’s also the director and producer of the documentary.

“They started napkin planning, and then it became this amazing first show at Henry Miller Library in 2009,” she said. “It was really an intimate event, not a lot of people. There was such a wow factor afterwards, people started buzzing about it. When 2010 hit, the whole town was there. It’s just grown from there.”

Ironically, it’s become a casualty of its own huge success. It’s a reflection of the overabundance of love paid to Big Sur by out-of-town tourists. In recent years, tickets offered on Eventbrite sold out almost instantly, and locals were left bereft of their own event.

Despite the move to a larger venue, organizers still decided it was necessary to have a ticket pre-sale only available to those who could appear in person at Henry Miller Library to pick them up. Thus, locals could realistically have the chance to purchase theirs before online sales opened the event to the world at large. By the time that happened there weren’t many left, and they were all snatched up in no time.

Last year’s show was truncated to allow time to reimagine the event’s future. The production took place under the radar with only the children’s fashion show and a trailer of the film shown in town. Henry Miller’s capacity had overflowed and its issues with parking demanded a move to a larger venue with better parking options.

AdvertisementEach year the call goes out for designers, usually in January. This year the theme is “Bohemian Recipes” and there will be 26 “acts” that involve one or two models. For those familiar with the fashion industry, there could be a comparison made to the Met Gala held each year in New York. At the recently held “Oscars For Fashion,” designers and celebrities collaborated to meet the criteria for that year’s theme, creating some of the most outlandish and beautiful clothing imaginable.

In Big Sur, most outfits won’t be anything like what you would see on the street. These designs are works of art, some taking long hours of concentrated effort, others cobbled together in a rush just ahead of the show. On the runway, which will be on the fenced-off lawn next to the river behind the restaurant/hotel, models will enact little dramas in their costumes. Some are quite erotic and provocative, others just plain freaky. Pre-show backstage drama is just as wild, with hair and makeup art being applied lovingly; that is, until just before curtain when, as is the case at any fashion show, it gets a little crazy.

Attendees are encouraged to cheap evening dresses uk to impress, which could mean sticking to thematic Bohemian style, which could manifest in whatever way each person’s creativity allows. Anything goes, guys and gals!

The presenting sponsor is Treebones, a “glamping” resort with yurt rooms overlooking the Pacific Ocean 30 miles south of Big Sur Village. Of course, props go out to River Inn Resort’s Kara Stout, Rick Aldinger and owner Alan Perlmutter for their contributions. Henry Miller Library’s Magnus Toren will again serve as the Master of Ceremony, offering his dramatic acting skills to describe the materials and process for the making of each outfit as well as introducing the designers and models.

“I’ll be making sure the moving parts are all synced,” said new Executive Director Elsa Rivera, a real dynamo when it comes to community-based events such as this. “I’ll be doing some introductions. I’ll be up and down and all around. ... I have some big and beautiful shoes to fill, those of founder Lisa Goettel. I want to honor her and Sara’s brainchild, and they are a great inspiration for us.”

The documentary “From Ashes to Art” will be available as a DVD to buy at the fashion show, or afterwards through the event’s website, www.bigsurfashionshow.org. There you’ll also see amazing event photos by talented local photographers Rachel Elizabeth Short, Kodiak Greenwood, Patrice Ward, Michelle Magdalena Maddox and Christine Holding.

Plans are to arrange a theater showing of the film in town at a later date. Tolentino wanted to thank professional film editor Will Hawkins of Wilco Films for his work when it came time to wrap the production. The nonprofit production team returns net proceeds back into the event, and everyone involved contributes as a labor of love.

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