Seventh Annual Austin Fashion Week Kicks Off

Let Austin Fashion Week begin!  The seventh annual event officially kicked off with a packed house party at downtown’s Speakeasy.  The evening brought out Austin’s well-dressed and featured the talented members of the 2015 Mash Up teams.

The Mash Up competition is an annual event that creates quite the competitive buzz around town.   “We’re kicking off Austin Fashion Week 2015 with the Mash Up Teams.  It’s a hairstylist, a makeup artist, as many designers as it takes to complete a look and a photographer and a model all coming together to create one amazing image”, said Matt Swinney, Founder of Austin Fashion Week.
The canvas photos were displayed throughout the Speakeasy venue. For many participating photographers, this was the first year they have participated in the Mash Up Challenge.  All Mash Up photos here.
Mash Up Team Elements of Freedom photographer Beatriz Medina encountered a small challenge to pull off her team shoot.  “It was fun but it was a little hard for me because of my English.  I was the leader and it was hard to tell everybody what to do so they would understand me, but it all worked out perfectly and I learned a lot, I loved it!” shared Medina.  The Elements of Freedom photo is a finalist, Critic’s Choice category.
A Critics Choice award and a People’s Choice award will be announced at this year’s FINALE (Formerly Austin Fashion Awards) on April 18, at the Austin Music Hall.
Another fun addition to the kickoff party was a fashion presentation that featured one look from the past nine decades.  Local stylists and bloggers styled one model from the era and were photographed by AFW award-winning and Fashionably Austin photographer Gregg Cestaro.
Hair styles were provided by the talented team of Urban Betty lead by Chelle Morrison (a 2015 Austin Trailblazer nominee) and makeup looks provided by FaceKandy led by Kandy Glass.
See the Decade / Event photos here

We are one day down and there is more to come with great events featuring boutiques, designers and salons. We’ll see you there and don’t forget to have us snap a photo of you at the events.
Fashionably Austin is the official photography of Austin Fashion Week!