Swapping Fabulous

My group of friends is a super-stylish bunch. I'm always in awe of the way such a diverse group of women can throw together an unexpected, fashion-forward outfit and strut about town looking, as Tyra would say, fierce. Each girl has her own flavor, her own way of making a mark. And none of us make a lot of money, so these women are looking awesome for cheap.

Times being as hard as they are, both on a global (gulp, massive bank failures...) and a personal level (aargh, unemployment...) I thought it might do us some good to get together and have a little fun, all the while getting a new wardrobe and doing some good for the world. Not too much to ask, right?

To that end, I invited some friends to get come over with their cast-off clothing. We had some drinks and snacks, and finally got around to checking out everyone's goods.


Melanie and Alison came in the South Philly uniform: grey wife beaters and a bad attitude.


My new apprentice, Melissa, joined us with some fabulous clothes of her own to contribute. Here she checks out a blue dress:


When two people wanted the same thing, we made them rock-paper-scissor for it. Here Amanda and Rachel fight it out for the dress Rachel is wearing: (Amanda won, for the record)


Melanie and Katie duke it out:


Even Rachel's boyfriend Leo got in on the fun-- here he models some galoshes:


Hyde modelled some fashion for us:


And of course later we had a fashion show with all of the rejected clothing. It should be no surprise to anyone who knows them that AJ and Lindsay were the most enthusiastic of models:


Connecting with the camera, like Tyra taught them:


Hyde doesn't seem amused by our attempts to make him more fashionable:


When the night was over, both Hyde and Betty seemed to really love the fact that there was a giant new bed for them to sleep on:


The party was an enormous success-- we had a ton of fun and I scored a great new wardrobe! Today Deb and I took the reject pile to the MS Research drop box. This was such a good time that I think we have to do it at least once a season. A big thank you to everyone involved!