“All I want are high heels, high heels,” fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi once said. “If I was a girl, I’d wear a lot of high heels. High stiletto heels.”
With Jews having such a deep history in fashion and the textile trade, it should be no surprise that Seattle’s Jewish community would celebrate its fashion roots and its continuing presence in the industry today, with — what else? — a fashion show.
The Chai Couture Fashion Show will feature many Seattle-area Jewish fashion and jewelry designers with names that include Butch Blum, Rita Gruzman and Whitney Heather Stern. While the main event of the evening will be the runway show that exhibits the work of these designers, performers from other areas of Jewish culture in the Northwest will also take part, including celebrated flamenco dancer Ana Montes and Afro-Cuban music by the Eli Rosenblatt band.
“There’s such a rich history of the Jewish community involved in textiles, and today in fashion,” said clothing designer and event chair Cameron Levin.
“It’s an exciting opportunity to highlight our Jewish community and Jewish history,” event coordinator Josh Furman said.
This continues in the present day, Furman said, as Jewish people are still revolutionizing the world of fashion.
Designer Gruzman experiments with a type of fashion called “upcycling.” She said this is where you “take the old and make something unrecognizably new.”
In other words, she redesigns vintage and cast-off clothes.
“I want these clothes to have a new life,” Gruzman told JTNews.
Gruzman, who has been designing since 1990, said a small aspect of an article of vintage clothing — a sleeve that she likes, for example — will catch her eye. That’s often how her work begins.
She said her designs are often reminiscent of something from the ‘40s, ‘50s or ‘60s.
Gruzman said, however, that there often is an unfortunate connection in the minds of many people between reconstructed clothing and “sloppy, granola and yoga.”
“My concept is different,” she said. “I make fashion from vintage and thrown-away clothes. Any piece can be worn at a party or event.”
Because her pieces are constructed from used clothing, Gruzman said, everything she makes is eco-friendly.
Gruzman’s family history has a strong presence in the clothing-making industry. This is why she thought the Chai Couture Fashion show was a great idea.
“Jewish people need to want their kids to be dressmakers or seamstresses,” Gruzman said. “It’s going back to our roots.”
Levin also incorporates sustainability into her design. Her current line, Yarok — Hebrew for green — is high couture made from hemp.
“I’m really trying to incorporate my values of love and appreciation and respect for our earth, and doing what we can to make a difference,” Levin said. “Hemp is really, really beautiful, very sustainable…you can feel good about wearing it, and it feels good on your skin.”
During the day, Levin is the director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle’s Young Leadership program. Her fashion career began as an emotional response to the shooting at the Federation in 2006, when she felt a need to produce art.
“I decided life is truly so short and I can do what I’ve always loved to do while I also have my regular job,” she said.
She has developed her skills and designed two lines since.
“I do a lot of stuff by hand, I do a lot of old techniques,” Levin said. “You’re always developing, but it took several years.”
Another designer to be featured at the event, Whitney Heather Stern, also takes fashion and social change hand-in-hand. Stern, who has been designing jewelry for the past seven years, said she realized fashion could be used to promote change when she was working for a public health organization in South America.
“The organization was mostly related to art and health,” Stern said. “I picked up doing art there.”
She said her designer work encourages change by being “environmentally friendly and sustainable.” Stern said all stones are hand-picked and her company always purchases material locally.
“In the world that we’re living in, where everything is mass produced,” Stern said, “morally speaking, it’s important to keep things local.”
She links the deep connection she has always felt toward women and children directly to her roots in Judaism, she said. Hence, her reasons for participating in the Chai Couture fashion show were simple.
“I love fashion, and I love representing my Jewish culture,” Stern said.
All the proceeds of the event will benefit the Sviva Tomehet micro-loan program, which helps immigrant women in Israel start successful businesses.
Hillel at the University of Washington’s JConnect young adults program, which is putting on the event, hopes to bring together many people and businesses of the Jewish community. Food is donated by Jewish caterer David Sanford with drinks from Liberty Bar, and will be emceed by Fox News sportscaster Aaron Levine.
Even the location has a deep connection to Seattle’s Sephardic history: Washington Hall, located in Seattle’s Central District, hosted plays performed in Ladino in the 1920s. Also, the Ezra Bessaroth synagogue rented the space for the High Holidays until its own building was constructed in 1917.
Stephannie Stokes is a student in the University of Washington Department of Communication News Laboratory.