Last Thursday was a veritable feast of fashion fun in Leeds, with both The Look of Leeds and Passion 4 Fashion on the same night. Jen Holmes, intrepid reporter and owner of style blog A Little Bird Told Me, visited The Look of Leeds, while Elly Snare, Culture Vulture regular and adventurer extraordinaire, went over to Passion 4 Fashion.

So here’s Elly’s story…

Passion 4 Fashion – A Stylish Achievement

While Jen was off gallivanting with the Look of Leeds crew, I too was similarly schmoozing over at Leeds Town Hall at the Passion 4 Fashion event. It seemed like we’d chosen other ends of the fashion spectrum – but what they did have in common was style.

Arriving early to the Passion 4 Fashion event, and straight into a whirlwind of models, choreographers, soundchecks and clipboards, you could feel the combination of nerves, tears and excitement bouncing around the room. Passion 4 Fashion has been a long time in the making, bringing together eight of the housing providers in Leeds and numerous external groups like Leeds Libraries and Chapeltown CAB to develop a financial inclusion project. The participants, under the watchful (and experienced) eye of Ketchup Clothing, ReMade Leeds and Fabrication, have learnt how to create their own clothes, many from scratch, with an absolutely tiny budget and no prior knowledge of pattern-cutting, design, or sewing. On top of this they received employment and training services, and money-managing sessions with group and one-to-one sessions.

With all of this intense work and incredible achievement bunched together into one evening, you can imagine exactly how tense – and joyous – everyone was. Bagging a front row seat with Shang Ting Peng, we waited as the lights dimmed and the crowd sort-of shushed.

The first act exploded with a neon-lit, thunderous performance by Junk Beatz, a group who took barrels, sieves, old sinks, and really big sticks, and created a wonderfully complex array of drumming rhythms set to co-ordinating light patterns. The host, JoJo, was charming and wore a dress she herself described as ‘a bit Margot from the Good Life’, which personally I thought was lovely. The interval saw a performance from an unscheduled breakdance troupe who were so good that my writing skills fail to describe them: one of the two women in the group, I’m sure, trained as an acrobat because there is no way your leg should go all that way over your head.

The two catwalk shows featured the participants of the programme modelling their own creations, which was refreshing and frankly, brilliant, as the audience went completely bananas with each new outfit. The whooping and hollering as the ladies (and lads) strutted their stuff was infectious, and I found myself cheering between photo opportunities. Each outfit was as idiosyncratic as the wearer, ranging from punked-up skirts and bustiers to floor length gowns, to fifties style dresses, and re-made men’s suits. The details and design ideas were incredible: one outfit I managed to snap insufficiently was a stretch-knit tube dress in mustard yellow and sage green, constructed from (I think) tight fitting jumpers, with built in braces and cut out body-con style sections. Another was a men’s tweedy suit jacket with chunky knitted hood attached, paired with harem-type trousers. One dress, a tight strapless miniskirted number, had been customised to include a pink sparkly chiffon sleeve, diamante cutout motif on the back, and a damn huge bow that trailed to the floor. And they all looked fabulous – to use the parlance of the day, they seriously owned those outfits.

You may be able to tell that I felt a little bit overwhelmed during this event. The sheer energy and enthusiasm radiating from the audience, the models, the musicians and the organisers was enthralling, and I went away feeling happy that this had taken place, and that I had been there. Not only was it a fantastic achievement by everyone involved, not only was it a feat of bureaucratic engineering to get some many groups involved in the same project, and not only was it fun, but the clothes were awesome, the models were fantastic, and I had a bloody good time. Another one, please?