Once every few months, a bar in Mt. Adams turns the dance floor into a runway.
Reclaimed Runways, the quarterly fashion and performance showcase inside the cocktail spot Flora & Flair at 1101 St. Gregory Street, brings together hundreds of local creatives to show off their talent through fashion, music and more.
The event features a different grouping of participants every time, which means attendees see a show each night that will never be performed again.
“Each time, we work with over 200 local artists, models, designers, performers to put together this untraditional runway,” said Molly Evans, the show’s executive producer. “The goal is to kind of break down accessibility barriers when it comes to fashion while empowering the fashion community in Cincinnati, and allowing people to show their art or express themselves who might not necessarily always get the space to do so.”
The next event is on October 21 and 22, and doors open at 6 p.m. It’s the 13th Reclaimed Runways show, as Evans and crew have been putting on the series for about two and a half years now. Their guiding principle? Expect the unexpected.
“We definitely have more traditional runway sets. But we have really involved, choreographed sets that people create special dances to. We have drag performances. We have burlesque performances. We have musical performances. And we always encourage the crowd to be rowdy,” she said. “Traditionally, fashion shows can be a stiff environment. But everyone here is extremely encouraging, extremely positive, and everyone’s best hype man.”
The series was created as a platform for creatives to experiment and share their work with a live audience; as such, there’s not usually a theme for each event. Instead, creatives are asked to reflect their own personal stylings in the work, which leads to plenty of out-there performances on stage.
Each show always breeds unique results due to the fact that designers are often paired up with models or other creatives who they’ve never met for their portion of the show.
“Sometimes it is truly random. A designer will be like, ‘Just give me five people,’ and models will be like, ‘I’ll do anything,’ and we’ll put those people together,” Evans said. “And that ends up being some of my favorite work, where two people that typically wouldn’t be paired together are, and they create something really special together.”
Evans took special care to shout out Nick McVicker’s fashion brand STMT for their well-crafted performances, which always feature “an amazing concept within their sets, and within that concept, have this beautiful narrative that’s always exciting to see.”
In its 13th iteration, a large community has sprung up around the event. For example, local designer Chris Caterino participated in the first Reclaimed Runways and has now become one of the show’s directors. Several other frequent participants in the show started off as audience members and were inspired by something they saw on the runway to create their own works.
“Through the networking that our show provides, people have been able to go off and build their own communities … we’ll pair two strangers together, and months from now, I’ll see them working together in all different aspects. They’ll do a photo shoot together, or create a line together,” Evans said. “I’ve seen this be a success story time and time again, where people that may not have been in the community or the creative scene in Cincinnati are able to find people that they’re able to create with, and it’s really special.”
For more information on Reclaimed Runways, visit the show’s Instagram page.
