The Pin Show, which was cofounded by Julie McCullough Kim of Make Shop & Studio, is in its third year, and it’s already the premiere independent fashion runway show in Dallas.
McCullough, who lives in Oak Cliff, and Denton-based designer Rachel Nichelson started the show in 2008 to give local designers a venue for their work. They expected to sell about 400 tickets the first year, and 1,200 people lined up to get in at the Gypsy Tea Room. So the show has moved to Union Station.
This year, the show includes designers from Dallas, Austin, Houston, Atlanta and Los Angeles.
“We’re not trying to compare ourselves to New York fashion week,” she says. “But if you’re not showing in New York or L.A., then maybe we’re your show.”
To be in the show, designers are required to produce everything in their local economies. From patternmakers to seamstresses, Kim and Nichelson want to encourage living local.
It’s all part of what Kim calls “slow fashion,” an antidote for the disposable, outsourced fashion of Forever 21 and the like.
“It’s important to me to know that I’m impacting the local economy,” she says.
Oak Cliff is home to a small fashion-design scene that Kim and Nichelson want to nurture through the Pin Space, which they opened next door to Jack’s Backyard recently. It’s a cooperative space that local fashion designers can use as a workspace and showroom.
