Saturday I was honored to be a part of Minnesota's Red Dress Collection, a night of fashion and philanthropy raising money and awareness for women's heart health.
Natalie in KOKOON. A twirl from Viking's Greg Jennings was icing on the cake.
This is a gala event that matches designers with local celebrities, and I was lucky enough to be paired with adorable WCCO anchor and reporter Natalie Nyhus. We hadn't met previously and we clicked immediately. If you're going to custom make a dress for someone, you just hope they appreciate your aesthetic and don't steer you towards fabrics or silhouettes that you wouldn't usually associate with your brand. Since KOKOON is all about comfortably feminine dresses, I wanted our red carpet look to reflect that, and Natalie was all for it.
Detail of the fabric and trim
First fitting...worked beautifully!
At the final fitting, we had to keep it under wraps until the runway show.
Since I was traveling a lot and Natalie has a busy work schedule, we were able to condense the entire process, from sketch to completed final dress in one week. Natalie brought a cameraman and did a behind the scenes feature for WCCO, which you can watch here!
Here are some highlights from this magical evening.
All models wore jewelry designed for the event by Realia by Jen.
A champagne toast helped calm nervous energy.
Fashion Stylist Hollie Mae with Minnesota Red Dress Collection founder and host, Carly Aplin.
All the designer's sketches framed as gifts to the models.
The Voice's Kat Perkins waiting backstage.
So happy to see Tim Navarro, who appeared on last season's Project Runway!
The WCCO team all did a great job of modeling!
And the runway show ended with Kat Perkin's powerhouse solo!
So grateful to have my handsome husband by my side!
Surrounded by 2 beautiful ladies wearing one-of-a-kind KOKOON dresses!
Our friends celebrating the 10th anniversary of their son's heart transplant that night!
Such a fun experience and so glad to be a part of such a great cause.
See all the photos here. Photo credit to Rhea Pappas.