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Though “Dance: Movement, Rhythm, Spectacle” occupies just one large room (arranged to feel like three) at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, it seems to open windows in many directions. Its exhibits range from the 1890s to the 1980s, vividly demonstrating how radically that century brought change to social dance, dance theater and ideas of dance in art. Diversely diverse, the show, which opened this month, offers a panoply of artistic media (photographs, paintings, watercolors, prints, woodcuts, etchings, graphite drawings, lithographs and film), dancers of various races and a huge assortment of dance costumes. Its binding thread? The depiction of movement.

Several items here are startling and singular. In Pablo Picasso’s 1939 “Woman With Tambourine” (aquatint and etching), Picasso’s mistress Dora Maar, naked breasts in the air, is shown as a follower of Bacchus, her face and limbs viewed from several angles. She’s multidimensional, and so is her dance. This is a complex piece, a powerful cartoon that’s halfway to sculpture. Alexander Calder’s 1942 “Score for Ballet” is a two-dimensional notation for a three-dimensional dance that was probably never performed. Calder’s mobiles have always had dance qualities and have often impressed dancers; this evidence of his own idea of dance theater is intriguing.

A number of pieces are abstract (Charles Searles’s 1982 “Dance in the Blue Sky III,” for example, beautiful in its play of color) or close to abstraction (in Joan Miró’s 1963 “Danse Nuptiale,” the two figures and their bridal dance are dramatic and suggestive while completely devoid of human detail). And there are other riches to be found in the earliest pictures, which just show couples waltzing.

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Here is Pierre-August Renoir’s etching of “La Danse à la Campagne” (around 1890) — an endearing and classic image of a couple dancing in the open air. (The artist’s more celebrated painting of the same dance is on the poster for the Philadelphia Museum’s big forthcoming exhibition of Paul Durand-Ruel’s work as an art dealer, “Discovering the Impressionists,” but here it’s good to see Renoir’s skill in line without color.)

Now turn from that to three other images of the waltz. In Anders Leonard Zorn’s 1891 etching “The Waltz,” a dense array of hatched lines potently evoke a high-society ball (men in white tie, women with long skirts flowing like trains).

An 1893 Eadweard Muybridge zoopraxiscope, “A Couple Waltzing,” works like film to give you the impression of a slightly less refined pair stepping as they rotate. The title figures in John Sloan’s 1905 etching “Man, Wife and Child” are all in a small room in a New York apartment; the husband, his suspenders dangling behind him, grips his wife close in a dance, and their child observes. (The picture, considered risqué, was rejected from one exhibition on grounds of vulgarity.)

We’re given depictions of the jitterbug, Lindy Hop, other dances of the early 20th century — with several views of the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem. The series brilliantly documents how body language has changed from the waltz, and indeed how it kept changing. (The violent physical extremes shown in Miguel Covarrubias’s lithograph “The Lindy Hop” are amazing, with the women throwing their weight every which way.) In the same group, Charles Demuth’s 1916 watercolor “The Green Dancer” proves one of the most exciting items in this whole collection, with three vaudeville dancers rising into the air, arms outstretched, toes pointed; the sense of energy, light, exuberance is terrific.

Here’s Loie Fuller on film (her “Serpentine Dance,” from the late 1890s) and in 1904 gypsographs (embossed prints) by Pierre Roche; here’s Isadora Duncan, caught in three 1920s watercolors by Abraham Walkowitz, and as reconstructed in dance by Lori Belilove in a 1987 film; and here’s Martha Graham both in silent film (a minute of the 1940 “Letter to the World,” with Erick Hawkins and Merce Cunningham making brief appearances) and in a Barbara Morgan photograph. These three women — Fuller, Duncan, Graham, each from a different generation — did much to create American modern dance and to become breakthrough emblems of American womanhood.

One of the supreme dance masterpieces of the last century is Bronislava Nijinska’s “Les Noces” (1923), still danced by the Royal Ballet and other companies in the somber colors that Natalia Goncharova provided for the original Diaghilev production. But Goncharova originally planned bright colors; it was Nijinska who insisted on a darker and far more subdued scheme. The impresario Diaghilev approved — a rare example of his allowing a choreographer to change an element he had already endorsed. And here (one of several décors from the Ballets Russes) is the Goncharova’s original curtain design, with flamelike yellows, oranges and reds in an exhilarating display of folk culture.

Every item is of interest. Daringly, this exhibition omits Degas, whose depictions of ballet form the most celebrated dance imagery in all of art. That’s fine; there’s more than enough here.

The film clips are too few and too short, but I was delighted to make the acquaintance of Rubberneck Holmes in the 1940 film “The Notorious Elinor Lee”; the plasticity with which he moves is laden with rhythm and glee. (The museum has upstairs a bronze of the Degas “Little Dancer,” by the way, and several other pieces of dance note, including a 1973 film of Lucinda Childs choreography in a room on minimalist art.) Anyone can imagine a Philadelphia Museum exhibition of dance imagery that occupied several more rooms and contained many more pieces; this one more than whets the appetite.

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Kari Cervilli and Josh Estock met in December 2012 at the Delaware Rock Gym in Bear. She was 23, in her last semester at the University of Delaware studying medical laboratory science and living at home in Newark with her parents. He was 28, working at Wilmington Hospital as a mental health associate and living in Wilmington with his brother, Jason. Josh had been allowed to leave his night shift early that day and decided to go to the rock gym for a few hours of climbing. Kari had been there for a while when he arrived, and when they saw each other, they said hello and exchanged a smile. About an hour later, Kari asked Josh about the Christiana Hospital scrubs he was wearing. She was about to start a college rotation at the hospital and was curious about where he worked. The two began talking and found out that they had a lot in common. They both loved the outdoors, especially kayaking in Lums Pond while looking for turtles and birdwatching. Both felt an instant connection. He asked her to dinner, but she had plans with her mom and said she would call. By the time she did, it was later than she expected. He suggested going to Longwood Gardens and came to pick her up about an hour after the call.

THE FIRST DATE: Christmas was right around the corner, and Longwood was romantically decorated with plants and lights. At the end of the night, Kari confessed she had been in a long-term relationship that was over, but she was having a hard time breaking away and didn’t want anything serious at the moment. Josh said he was fine being friends for the time being but hoped they could have a more meaningful relationship.

THE FIRST KISS: About a week later, Josh invited Kari to his house to watch the animated series “South Park,” a show they both enjoyed. They watched at least seven episodes, she said. A few hours into it, Josh told her he kept having the urge to kiss her, even though he knew he shouldn’t. By then, Kari was starting to realize she had genuine feelings for Josh. She sat there torturing herself about the right thing to do – for 10 minutes. Then they kissed and have dated steadily from that moment on. They were so sure where they were going that she moved in with him after about three months. By the end of 2013, she was expecting a spring or summer proposal.

THE PROPOSAL: On Jan. 10, 2014, the two had decided to spend a long weekend at Josh’s dad’s cabin in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. Josh planned to propose, but he wasn’t sure where or when. He just wanted the moment to be right. That night, they were snuggled up in front of the cabin stove and Kari was feeling so relaxed, at peace and in love that she spontaneously told Josh that this moment right now with him was just so wonderful. Josh got up, walked across the room and retrieved the ring, which was hidden in a magazine rack, and told Kari he wanted to continue to have wonderful moments with her for the rest of their lives. Then he got down on one knee and asked her to marry him. His hand was shaking as he put the ring on her finger. She was so shocked she couldn’t speak, and had to work to get the word “yes” out. Then she started crying and laughing while they hugged. They decided to take a little time for themselves to enjoy the moment and went down to Raystown Lake. Josh wanted to show Kari the overlook where he had considered proposing, but so many roads and paths were blocked by icy conditions, they never did. Instead, Josh and Kari walked around the perimeter of the lake and took several pictures. When they returned to the cabin, Josh sent a group text to Kari’s parents, his parents, his two brothers and his sister-in-law, with a picture of the ring and the message: “Surprise!” Kari found out later that about a month before her dad, a jeweler who had sold his store but continued working there, had been the one to sell Josh the ring and the diamond, and her dad had mounted it himself.

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THE CEREMONY: They married Oct. 4, 2014, outside the Bellevue Mansion at Bellevue State Park in Wilmington. At the time, Kari and Josh lived right across the street, so it was not only a beautiful location, but also convenient. They wanted to get married in the fall, but the fall of 2015 seemed too far away, so they decided to have a short engagement. When Kari went with her mom to tour the mansion, the only date that was available was Oct. 4. Kari accepted immediately accepted and texted Josh: “We are getting married on Oct. 4!” The couple decided to have a tree planting ceremony during their marriage. They obtained a white oak sapling from Josh’s parents’ house, planted it in a large pot in soil from both Josh’s and Kari’s parents’ yard, and watered it during the ceremony. The couple plans to plant this tree at their new home in Townsend.

THE RECEPTION: The reception also was at Bellevue. The old DuPont library was used as the dancing floor, while the Trophy Room was used for tea and coffee. Dinner was in a large tent in the back of the house. Josh is not shy about much, and that includes dancing. As the first song began, he marched out onto the dance floor by himself, throwing his arms about with a smirk on his face, as he tossed his jacket and vest off to the side. He proceeded to break dance in the middle of the floor, do handstands and more. His best man, Jeff Hermansky, joined him and then his brothers. Kari’s maid of honor, Hannah Foley, finally pulled her onto the dance floor. None of it was planned, but it was funny and made great photos.

THE MOST SENTIMENTAL GIFT: At the bridal shower, the bridesmaids gave the couple a personalized picture with the name ESTOCK spelled out with a different picture for each letter, the date of the wedding and the saying, “Love you now, love you still, always have, always will.”

THE HONEYMOON: Josh and Kari visited the British Virgin Island of Dominica for 10 days. They stayed at Manicou River Resort in the north part of the island, where they snorkeled, birdwatched and toured the cities, and then went to Crescent Moon Cabins in the south central part of the island, where they went on several waterfall and mountain hikes. Besides swimming at waterfalls, they really enjoyed the “Bubble Spa,” a shallow hot spring next to the ocean, so the cold and hot water mix, and visitors can see bubbles rising out of the water.

THE FAMILY TREE: The bride is the daughter of Denise and Nick Cervelli of Newark. The groom is the son of June and Jeff Estock.

WHAT’S NEXT: The couple just bought a home in Townsend, where they live with their cats, Ramsey and Siamun. Josh graduated from Salesianum High School in 2002 and the University of Delaware in sociology in 2009. He continues to work at Wilmington Hospital and would like to one day open his own business offering everything from personalized one-on-one training, yoga, mindfulness and meditation, as well as acupuncture and nutritional guidance. Kari, who graduated from Ursuline Academy in 2008 and the University of Delaware in 2013, works as a biochemist at Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics. They hope to have kids within the next few years and to one day add a dog to the family.

Each week, Sundaylife highlights a wedding. To have your ceremony considered, you must fill out a questionnaire and send us a photo. You can find the form on www.delawareonline.com on the same page the story is featured on, or you may email Sundaylife@delawareonline.com with “wedding” in the subject line. This is a free service, and we cannot guarantee a specific ceremony will be chosen. Couples also may have their ceremonies appear in Celebrations (324-2781), which runs weekly in Sundaylife.

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“Project Runway” designer Timothy Westbrook decided last year that he wanted to use his fashion skills to benefit child abuse prevention efforts.

As a contestant on Season 12 of the popular and long-running reality TV show, Westbrook figured he could bring his name and talent to a cause that meant a great deal to him personally. The question was where to start.

And the answer, naturally, was Google.

“I typed in ‘child abuse awareness fashion show,’ ” he said, and two results popped up: an agency in Chicago that no longer sponsors a fashion show, and the Yolo County Children’s Alliance, which does.

Last year, in fact, was going to be the alliance’s fifth annual fashion-show fundraiser, and what better way to celebrate that milestone than with a new approach, figured executive director Katie Villegas when she heard about Westbrook’s interest.

For the first four years, the fashion show had featured local elected officials as models. Everyone from school board members to mayors were outfitted by local retailers for the event and the show was a success, year after year.

With Westbrook’s entry last year, the show became Project Prevention, showcasing his designs made entirely of repurposed, recycled materials, worn by a cast of Yolo County teenagers.

The teens were referred by the alliance’s partner agencies throughout the county and last year included everyone from student leaders to foster youths and even a couple of homeless teens. It was a huge hit for everyone involved.

Westbrook arrived in Yolo County with fashions in hand and brought along his stylist partner, Alexis Rose, who is herself a child abuse survivor.

“They were awesome,” Villegas said. “Here are these kids wearing $5,000 dresses … they get their hair and makeup done by a professional stylist and receive training for walking the runway.

“It was really cool to see them shine in the spotlight.”

This year’s event was even better, as not only did Westbrook return, he brought along Season 13 contestant Angela Sum.

The day before the fashion show — held at the West Sacramento City Hall Galleria at the end of April — both designers were on hand to meet their models and fit them in their designs before Westbrook instructed them on their catwalk duties.

“It’s awesome working with these kids,” he said during a break in the rehearsal.

“I try to be really goofy,” he said, and he was, using his wacky sense of humor to put the models at ease.

But he also had high expectations for them.

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“It’s a professional situation and they can be treated with respect and you can have high expectations,” he said. “Expectation of greatness is a compliment. And it’s the way I treat professional models.”

For some of these young people, he noted, “this is New York Fashion Week.”

They had not only a team of stylists taking care of their hair and makeup, they were working with a pair of celebrity designers.

It’s a big deal to them, Westbrook noted.

Even though, he added, “we’re such fake celebrities.”

For this year’s fashion show theme, Westbrook chose Cinderella, because it not only represents the idea of fashioning beautiful gowns out of whatever repurposed material can be found — Westbrook’s specialty — but also because the fairy tale represents an indictment of child abuse — in Cinderella’s case, abuse at the hands of her stepsisters and stepmother.

“Child abuse comes in many different colors,” Westbrook noted, whether it’s verbal or physical, or comes from a parent, a sibling or a friend.

One of his showpieces for the event was a gown fashioned from his great-aunt’s wedding dress and worn by Davis resident Sami Esquivias, 17, a student at Woodland Christian School.

Nobody was ever going to wear the dress again, Westbrook said, “and it was just going to be thrown away.”

“But it had so many memories,” he explained, and he snapped it up when his cousin offered it to him.

He used other recycled materials to modernize the dress — as well as to cover a stain it had — and just like that, Esquivias was the belle of the ball.

Joining her on the catwalk were both novice models and those with more experience under their belts.

Woodland resident Lissett Santillan, 16, served as a model for Westbrook last year and returned this year to wear one of Sum’s designs.

Participating last year, she said, built up her confidence.

“I’m kind of a shy person,” she explained.

Now she wants to do even more modeling.

Carmen Moreno, a student at River City High School in West Sacramento, already had done some modeling herself — she was featured in a recent edition of Quinceañera magazine — but this was her first time in the Children’s Alliance show. She ended up wearing a dramatic black Westbrook gown.

Westbrook and Sum, meanwhile, enjoyed working with their young models.

“They’re really nice girls,” Sum said. “I’m having fun with them.”

It wasn’t just girls, though — Westbrook had two young men among his models, as well as West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon in a return appearance on the catwalk.

Before the show got underway — hours after the models had arrived for hair and makeup and were fitted in their designs — Westbrook rallied them in the upstairs City Council chambers, gathering them all for a last-second huddle.

“We’ve all come together for an awesome cause and it’s really important to this community,” he told them.

“You all look so great,” he added. “Get what you want out of this. This is your show, and you’re all sparkling. Just trust yourself and have a really good time.”

They did. As, apparently, did their audience — all told, the event raised more than $45,000 for the Children’s Alliance, thanks to ticket sales, a silent auction and Westbrook’s offer to sell many of the pieces he was showing that evening and donate a portion of the proceeds back to the fundraiser.

He’s already looking ahead to next year’s event, too. Westbrook said he reached out to a number of other “Project Runway” veterans who expressed interest in participating this year but weren’t able to work out the timing.

One of them, Season 12 runner-up Alexandria von Bromssen, had planned to participate but had to cancel at the last minute. Westbrook expects to have more designers on board for Project Prevention 2016.

And that’s good news for Yolo County’s most vulnerable children. As the primary child abuse prevention agency for the county, the Children’s Alliance has numerous programs aimed at preventing child abuse and neglect, including Step by Step, an intensive home-visitation program aimed at families at high risk, and Baby Steps, a shaken-baby prevention program.

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The Korea-fication of high fashion: As Chanel launches its new cruise collection in Seoul, why designers are all looking east

Chanel unveiled it’s latest Cruise Collection this week with Kendall Jenner on the catwalk and actress Kristen Stewart sitting in the front row as a personal guest of Karl Lagerfeld.

Not unusual, you might think. Indeed, pretty typical. And yet, this was a show unlike any other for instead of Paris, it took place in Seoul’s futuristic Dongdaemun Design Plaza.

Now the third-largest market for luxury goods in Asia, South Korea is one of the fashion industry’s top targets and, as a result, is being courted assiduously by fashion’s heaviest hitters.

While Chanel is the first to take its Cruise collection to the country, other brands have also been targeting the shoppers of Seoul – all in the hopes of picking up a slice of the profits.

Part of the reason for this is that South Korean consumers are, according to consultants McKinsey, encouraged to indulge in subtle displays of wealth; branded goods being one of the most obvious ways to do so.

More pertinent is the booming economy which has been reeling in European, British and American brands ever since the 2008 financial crisis slammed the brakes on shopping at home.

Although the UK and the US are back in business, the stuttering financial performance in the Eurozone has left companies ever more dependent on Oriental consumers.

And of all the countries that the fashion industry wants a slice of, few come higher up the list than South Korea.

Already popular is Chanel, whose signature pieces, among them the eye-wateringly expensive 2:55 quilted bag, have become cult status symbols.

Hence the decision by bosses to relocate this year’s cruise show to Seoul – a move that follows shows held in Singapore and Dubai and perhaps signals, for now at least, the end of more traditional venues for cruise such as Cannes.

‘We chose Seoul for a few reasons,’ Chanel’s president of fashion, Bruno Pavlovsky, explained in an interview following the show.

‘Firstly, as an inspiration [but] there’s also a business reason. South Korea is a fast-growing market, a very interesting one, now also open to the Chinese and Japanese.’

Even more striking was the fact that the South Korean capital wasn’t just the venue, it appeared to have been Karl Lagerfeld’s inspiration as well.

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Present, although less prominent than usual, was Chanel’s trademark black and white, while nautical, always a staple in cruise collections, was given the flick entirely.

In its place were delicate cherry blossom prints, jackets in shimmering pink and a carefully calibrated update to the 2.55 bag – now available in bold bubblegum-pink.

Bold neons of the sort so beloved of Far Eastern consumers were present and correct, as were sharp geometric prints of the sort that can be happily clashed in a way frequently seen on the streets of Seoul but less so in Paris and London.

And it wasn’t just the fashion that was designed to appeal to local consumers: Sitting beside Tilda Swinton and Kristen Stewart were K-Pop favourites G-Dragon and Taeyang, practically unknown in the West but enormously popular at home.

Other heavy hitters to appear included acting stars Ah-Sung Ko and Jung Ryeo-Won, and the Japanese star, Rinko Kikuchi.

While Chanel is unlikely to relocate its main ready-to-wear or couture shows to the South Korean capital, the move is confirmation of the growing importance of the Far East – and is a new direction for cruisewear.

Originally designed for jetsetters expecting to spend their winters cruising in the Caribbean, hence the name, cruise collections traditionally focused on lightweight summer wear and nautical motifs.

Unveiled with little fanfare, until relatively recently, cruisewear slid into shops in January without fuss and barely noticed by mainstream consumers.

Today, things couldn’t be more different. Not only are cruise collections given the sort of flamboyant unveil previously reserved for the main line, they have spawned a sibling in the shape of pre-fall.

According to Pavlovsky, cruise offers the chance to appeal directly to Far Eastern fashion fans – and boost sales of the main line in the process.

Speaking to Business of Fashion, he added: ‘We can create a stronger relationship with our customers thanks to the cruise and the Metiers d’Art collections.

‘Twice a year, we travel somewhere different to be alone in a city and offer a special moment, a total Chanel experience.

‘I see that as the best way to introduce the brand to new customers. That is hard to achieve in Paris during the pret-a-porter calendar, where the show is one among a hundreds more.’

Last year, Burberry pulled off a similar trick with a lavish catwalk show and party in Shanghai to celebrate the launch of the British label’s multimillion pound flagship store.

Louis Vuitton has a huge presence in the Far East, as does Prada, Gucci and other blue chip fashion brands.

They can’t expect to have things all their own way though: with the boom in international brands has come a corresponding rise in homegrown talent – much of which is proving equally popular.

Nevertheless, while Chanel might be the first to show its Cruise collection in South Korea, it most likely won’t be the last.

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Before reinventing the high heel, Dolly Singh was a recruiter who brought thousands of engineers to places such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which is building rockets in Los Angeles. At SpaceX, Singh, 36, wore heels every day. Even though she loved pitching people on SpaceX, she started to dread taking recruits on tours of its 550,000-square-foot rocket factory. “Once you hit 30, your body changes,” she says. “I had liked high heels since I was 17 but was starting to despise them.”

Next she did a stint at Oculus VR, a startup making a virtual-reality visor. Singh didn’t have to walk as much, but she kept thinking about heels. While at Oculus, she enrolled in the Founder Institute, a program that helps budding entrepreneurs develop their ideas. In mid-2014, Facebook bought Oculus VR for $2 billion. Singh quit to follow her passion, starting Thesis Couture and hoping to apply science to fashion. She’s not designing high heels as much as engineering them.

In hiring for Thesis, Singh has purposefully ignored people with experience in the shoe industry, instead enlisting an astronaut, a wearable-technology whiz, an orthopedist, and a materials expert. “I remember meeting Dolly for lunch and sketching some things out on napkins,” says Garrett Reisman, an astronaut Singh recruited at SpaceX. He joined Thesis as a consultant last year. “To be honest, it was pretty far afield from my interest and expertise, but once she talked about it as an engineering problem, I was hooked,” he says.

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Singh’s consultants include Hans Koenigsmann, an aerospace engineer and head of mission assurance at SpaceX, and Andy Goldberg, a surgeon who specializes in the reconstruction of feet and ankles. There’s also Amanda Parkes, who has a doctorate in tangible media from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has been at the forefront of the wearable device movement. She serves as chief technology officer at Thesis.

The high heel made its way to the Western fashion scene in the late 1500s as part of a craze for all things Persian. Those early heels were aimed at men and modeled on the riding boots of Persian cavalry. By the mid-1700s, however, they had become a woman’s shoe. Today, American women spend $20 billion annually on high heels, but the shoes haven’t been altered in a meaningful way for decades. “Given how much the rest of the world has evolved, it’s insane that high heels have not changed,” Singh says. “This is a problem that needs to be solved.”

High heels cram toes into a tight pocket, directing excessive amounts of force to the heels. Sarah Jessica Parker, who was famous for wearing them, had to swear off them after her foot rebelled by growing a protective layer of tissue. But most women have long accepted the pain. “My patients come to me and beg me to fix their feet,” says Michele Summers Colon, a podiatrist in El Monte, Calif. She recently started 34 Minute Shoes—a reference to how long women can stand in normal heels without pain—which is also rethinking the heel. “They ask me to operate on them and inject them—anything so that they can keep wearing high heels.”

34 Minute Shoes, Cole Haan, and others have focused on adding extra cushioning or creating a more customized fit around the foot. The Thesis team has zeroed in on the steel shank, a strip of metal a few inches long that’s at the heart of most shoes. In high heels, its purpose is to provide the strength needed for the wearer to stand at an angle. In the 1950s, shoe­makers figured out how to insert the shank into high heels and were able to make more stable products, which in turn gave rise to the stiletto. “Before that there were superskinny high heels, but they were specialty, fetish items,” says Lisa Small, the curator of exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum, which recently ended its Killer Heels exhibit, an historical review. “It’s in the post-World War II period where you start seeing patents for these extruded metal-based stilettos.”

To modernize the shank, Singh turned to Matt Thomas, director of mechanical design at Oculus. Before joining Oculus, Thomas worked on projects that ranged from customizing hot rods to engineering ballistic-grade eyewear for the military. Working as a consultant for Thesis, Thomas designed a shank made out of a plastic resin, instead of metal. The resin combines nylon with fiberglass and unlike the metal shank, doesn’t have uniform properties. It’s stiff in the middle and then has more give in the toe bed and heel to absorb impact—a mix of strength and comfort. “It’s as strong as steel in certain areas but half the weight overall,” Thomas says. “The materials also let us change the distribution load for how the foot sits in the high heel.”

When a woman is walking in high heels, the end of the stiletto jams into the ground and sends a shock up through her heel. Standing still is just as bad, because about 90 percent of the pressure is on the toes. The extra give in the Thesis shank helps spread that load by allowing the foot to sit more naturally in the shoe instead of tilting forward or backward. Around the shank, Thesis puts a rubbery material called thermo­plastic polyurethane, or TPU, which replaces the cardboard that surrounds the shank in most high heels. The company also plans to create rectangular bases for its stiletto heels, in effect doubling the surface area.

Thesis faces immense challenges. Singh is basically the company’s lone full-time employee and has put $240,000 of her own money into the company and raised $500,000 from friends. It has taken months for Singh to collect ideas and craft a prototype. She expects to make 1,500 pairs this year that will cost $925 each. Eventually, Thesis plans to offer different looks—day and evening styles—and to sell the shoes at a range of prices, starting at $350.

Colon of 34 Minute Shoes warns that messing with the shank comes with serious risks. “It’s there for a reason,” she says. “It has to support a lot of weight.” The Brooklyn Museum’s Small says it will be hard to design a comfortable shoe that’s still considered a fashion item. Women, she says, remain willing to put up with an awful lot of pain in the name of fashion. “They give lingerie a run for the money in terms of being a highly sexualized fashion accessory,” she says. “That’s at the heart of why [stilettos] are so popular and persistent and have become the archetypal grown-up women’s shoe.”

Singh acknowledges these obstacles but continues to believe in the power of modern materials. She’s tried to find solace by following a familiar model. “It’s the Elon Musk approach,” she says. “If you make a badass product, everything else will work itself out. You have to have faith in that.”

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This year was Eleganza’s 21st birthday. Eleganza was founded in 1994 under the umbrella organization Harvard Black Community and Student Theater (Black C.A.S.T.) as a fashion show. Years later, Eleganza has evolved with a new twist. The show now focuses on charity, with all of its profits benefiting Boston Center for Teen Empowerment, a local organization that provides arts and mentorship opportunities to teens in high-risk areas. Eleganza is also a celebration of diversity—diversity of physical appearances, cultures, backgrounds, and forms of expression. Together, the three pillars of Eleganza are fashion, charity, and diversity. “All three of them are things often talked about here and at every school,” executive producer Preeti Srinivasan ‘16 says, “but I’ve never seen something that brings all of them together in the way that Eleganza does.” This three-pronged mission of fashion, charity, and diversity is perhaps what makes Eleganza such a resounding success, year after year.

Once again, Eleganza a huge success this year, successfully selling out the entire Lavietes Pavilion with over 1500 students, prospective students, VIPs, and family members in attendance. After a few opening remarks made by the executive producers, the show began with a spoken word piece written and performed by a talented student from the Center for Teen Empowerment. Zuri stood on the stage in an elegant gown, bathed in light before an enormous audience waiting with bated breath. She then launched into a powerful spoken word piece inspired by Michael Brown and police violence against blacks, a stirring piece about racism and cultural appropriation. Her performance elicited cheers of support, claps of agreement, and at the end, a standing ovation from the entire audience.

The spoken word performance framed Eleganza and made it clear that, though this was a fashion and dance show meant to entertain, it was also a celebration of diversity meant to educate and empower. “Eleganza taught me so much about diversity, in every sense of the word,” Srinivasan reflects. “Not just the physical sense of the word, but also emotional diversity—not just how people look, but how they think, act, and feel. I think a large part of that comes from the spoken word portion of the show. I think it’s absolutely beautiful that the show begins with a spoken word performance.”

After the spoken word performance, the music began to play, the lights began to flash, and the models began to strut onto the runway. The show had begun, with all of its components seamlessly working together to create an experience that was both overwhelming and impossible to look away from. The models were dressed in cutting-edge designs from some of the top fashion houses and designers like Vera Wang, Vineyard Vines, Nanette Lepore, Tadashi Shoji, and Kendra Scott. Tightly choreographed, they walked confidently in wave after wave onto the stage and paused at the ends to dance assertively, seductively, and powerfully. In this way, Eleganza blended a classic fashion runway show with a hip-hop and lyrical dance performance, creating a unique artistic experience. “I think there’s no other show quite like Eleganza in that it’s as much of a dance show as it is a fashion show,” executive producer Nancy Liu ‘16 says. “I’ve never heard of anything like it, even at other schools.”

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As a combination of a fashion and dance show, Eleganza requires an immense number of individuals to help organize and perform, this year united under the leadership of the three executive producers: Nancy Liu ‘16, Haylee Smith ‘17, and Preeti Srinivasan ‘16. For the executive producers, Eleganza was more than just a one-night performance; it was a project that they began working on at the beginning of the fall semester, recruiting board members, chose models, spread publicity, and planned logistics months in advance. A year-long endeavor that culminated in one night of adrenaline and joy as all their hard work finally came together, Srinivasan recalls, “When we stood on the stage and looked out at the audience, I thought to myself how incredible it was that we had been doing this for a whole year. It was absolutely magical.”

Eleganza has six boards: Community Service, Fashion, Finance, Production, Publicity, and Scene. Together, the board members work behind the scenes to make this show possible. A major part of Eleganza’s success comes from the production quality, complicated by the fact that the venue is a gymnasium filled with basketball hoops. “The lights, backdrops, and stage—basically all the equipment is contracted from outside,” explains Charlene Hwang ‘18, this year’s production chair. “Even though we use a gym as our venue, on the day of the performance, it doesn’t look like a gym at all. We pull out all the basketball hoops, paper the entire place, and set up backdrops and curtains and everything else that’s been brought in. Even the VIP chairs are rented.”

Eleganza also requires a great deal of paperwork—an aspect of the show that few people realize. “There are a lot of permits involved,” Hwang describes. “We need to fill out licensing paperwork and get approval from the city of Boston, the fire department, and the police. I’ve had to file entertainment licenses and electrical permits. But fortunately, because Eleganza is established, we have people on campus who can help me with all the paperwork.” The extent of the paperwork required for the performance to run goes to show just how much effort is needed behind-the-scenes.

But in the end, the models make this show truly unique. They aren’t just showing off fashionable pieces of designer clothing, they are also strutting and dancing and making this show the dynamic, energetic performance that it always is year after year. Eleganza’s model audition process is highly competitive, with over 400 students auditioning for the 50 model spots. This year, there were some Eleganza “veterans” in the lineup—models who had done the show for two, three, or even four years. But there were also some models who were doing the show for the very first time. One of those models, Mezu Ukah ‘18, did not intend to audition for Eleganzgo.” Eleganza attracts students from various backgrounds, and although many of the models have extensive dance experience or have done runway shows in the past, many models have considerably less experience. “I had no dance experience coming in, and to be honest, I still don’t,” Ukah claims. “I found the rehearsals challenging at first. I was lost for all of the first two rehearsals in terms of walks. But my scene director Kristen put up videos and those helped a lot.”

The rehearsals for the models are fast-paced, as the models need to learn and perfect a great deal of choreography in a relatively short period of time. The tightly-choreographed walks and dances would not be possible without hours of rehearsals. “Rehearsals start with some walks as a warm-up, followed by a run-through of choreography and some closing walks,” Ukah recalls. “They can range from one to two hours, depending on how much we have to get done. I found the pace of rehearsals to be a little fast at first, but all I had to do was pay more attention and get into it, and now learning new choreography is my favorite part.”

There is, clearly, a lot of time and effort that goes into the making of Eleganza. However, the end result is entirely worth it. “There are prefrosh every year who say that Eleganza was the deciding factor that made them choose Harvard,” Srinivasan says. “Nothing combats Harvard’s stereotypes more directly. We know what our school has a reputation for. At Eleganza, we get to see people who are talented and fierce, and it shows that Harvard students can still be fun and cool.” Liu explains further, “For prefrosh coming in, it really demonstrates the art scene at Harvard on so many levels. Eleganza changes their perception of Harvard as a stuffy place where people study all the time.”

But most importantly, Eleganza is a community for the board and for the models. The community aspect of Eleganza stems from the extensive period of time the board and models spend working with one another. Srinivasan explains, “The two events that market themselves as the largest student-run performances are Eleganza and Ghungroo, and though Ghungroo has a larger cast, we work with people for a much more extended period of time. For that reason, Eleganza becomes such a family, because you become so close to your boards.” Hwang attests to this, saying, “The best part of Eleganza has been meeting so many people I wouldn’t have necessarily met. We started working in October and it was a nice way to branch out early. I’ve really enjoyed the community of people I met through Eleganza.”

The community aspect of Eleganza is strong among the models as well. Liu reveals, “The models are really family. Once you get in freshman year, you come back year after year.” This explains the prevalence of “Eleganza veterans,” models who have come back each year to perform in the show. Srinivasan further explains, “There’s such a community among the models. The upperclassmen really take the freshmen under their wing.” Much more than just a one-night performance, Eleganza is a culmination of a year’s worth of hard work, friendships, and community. “It’s surreal right before the show, thinking to yourself, ‘Wait, this is actually happening right now,’” Hwang says. “I signed up back in October, so the show was always on the horizon, but I still couldn’t believe it when it was just a few days before the show. We ask ourselves if we’re ready, but we never quite feel ready until the day of the show. Until the day of, we think to ourselves, ‘We’re not ready, something’s going to happen.’ But everything catches up so quickly, and everything falls into place. And that’s when I think to myself, ‘I’m definitely going to do this again next year.’”

The show this year was phenomenal, made possible by a community of dedicated individuals, and there is no reason to believe the show next year will be any less remarkable. Eleganza has a bright future ahead, bringing to Harvard many more years of fashion, charity, and diversity.

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First things first: If you decide you simply must see every show at the inaugural Fort Lauderdale Fringe Festival on Saturday, you’re dreaming of the impossible.

Twenty shows are scheduled between noon and 10 p.m., all but one with two performances each during the festival, so even though that translates to 39 performances spread out over 10 hours, you’d be hard-pressed to see everything. The math just doesn’t work.

Not that fringe fest fanatics wouldn’t try.

Fringe-savvy artists and audiences alike just love the fringe theater experience. The Orlando International Fringe Festival, at 24 the oldest such festival in the United States and the largest one in the Southeast, will present over 700 performances of 130 shows May 13-25 at venues that ring the city’s Loch Haven Park. But until Broward College decided to back a Fort Lauderdale festival this year, the concept hadn’t come to South Florida.

Thomas Meyer, dean of the college’s Downtown Center on Las Olas Boulevard where the festival will be held, credits Broward College President J. David Armstrong with providing the impetus for the festival.

“President Armstrong had the vision. He thought it would be great to do a fringe festival in Fort Lauderdale. Supporting the arts and the community fits with our mission,” Meyer says.

Meyer is serving as the festival’s managing producer, but the college reached into the theater community for an artistic director. Vanessa Elise, who graduated from Miami’s New World School of the Arts in 2013, got the gig and will also appear in Sonia Cordoves’ play Reality Sucks at the festival.

Elise, who acknowledges that she’ll be “going a little cray cray” as the festival ticks down to its start, just finished a run in New Theatre’s Women Playing Hamlet and last fall performed her one-person show Noise: An Interruption at the United Solo Festival in New York. Taking her show to Manhattan taught her a lot, as did going to New World, where “they prepare you for anything,” she says. Advice from the Orlando Fringe and its producer, Michael Marinaccio, has also been invaluable.

“Looking down the road, we want this to be something amazing for South Florida,” Elise says. “We’re learning and growing. We have different types of audiences and artists here … We have rich Hispanic, African-American and Haitian communities here.”

Part of what makes a fringe festival different is explained in the way the Fort Lauderdale describes its shows: uncensored, unjuried performance art. The content can be plays, musicals, scripted pieces, improvised shows — whatever the artist decides.

The artist pays a fee to perform, then gets all or a percentage of ticket sales, depending on the fee paid up front. More than 30 performers or groups applied to be part of the inaugural Fort Lauderdale festival, and 20 were accepted on a first-come, first-booked basis. Eleven of the shows will have an adult content advisory label on their tickets.

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“As an institution of higher education, we embrace diversity and free speech,” Meyer says.

Casey Dressler, who took her solo show The Wedding Warrior to the biggest-in-the-world Edinburgh Festival Fringe last summer, is performing it again at the Fort Lauderdale Fringe and will take it to the United Solo Festival in the fall. Born of her experiences as a Key Largo wedding planner, the comedy is about the craziness of putting together someone else’s wedding while searching for love. Like Elise, Dressler is all about being a self-empowered artist.

“This is an opportunity for artists to have their voices heard,” says Dressler, who recently appeared in Alliance Theatre’s Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune. “I don’t always get the part because I don’t always fit the costume. This lets me do whatever the hell I want. I wrote and produced it.”

Performing in a fringe fest can be a spur to creation, too. Miamian Francesca Toledo applied with just a title, Senseless, then collaborated with Michelle Antelo, Melissa Ann Hubicsak and Randy Garcia to devise an aimed-at-adults piece about love.

“We had to decide what it was that we wanted to tell — about how we fall in love, what love is, how it changes us, what we become when we accept love, how it shapes us,” Toledo says. “And that losing someone is like a little death, like a process of grief … Then we had to make it more simple, tell a story so that people could come on that journey with us.”

Jerry Seeger brings deep experience as both an actor and a teacher to his fringe fest piece Demerits, Detentions and Dismissals. The director of drama at Fort Lauderdale’s St. Thomas Aquinas High School, Seeger has put together a piece built around the poems of New York slam poet (and former teacher) Taylor Mali. Seeger’s wife and partner in Underdog Productions, Carbonell Award winner Elena Maria Garcia, is directing the show.

“I performed at the ninth Orlando Fringe Festival, and it was one of the best experiences of my life,” says Seeger, who did the Eric Bogosian solo show Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll there in 2000. “What we produce [as Underdog] is on the edge. Now you have a theater festival that offers so much stuff that’s just out there. Theater isn’t just helicopters taking off and falling chandeliers. As good as theaters like GableStage are, theater isn’t just one size fits all. Now we can all rally around this festival.”

Though the first Fort Lauderdale festival has yet to happen, organizers are already looking ahead to the next one, hoping to add more stages to showcase more artists. Orlando’s Marinaccio, who started as a performer in 1997 and took over as producer several years ago, has tips on what’s important in making a fringe festival successful.

“You need to make it a great experience for the audience and the artists. You want to build a core of artists and give them a supportive platform so you can get them back. Really, the audience curates the festival,” says Marinaccio, alluding to the importance of ticket sales as a draw to artists.

“For the audience, you need to keep ticket prices low (tickets in Fort Lauderdale are $5 or $10 per show). If you see five shows at $10 apiece, you can have an entire Saturday full of theater. For artists, you don’t control any of the creative content. There’s no filter. And that can really be magical for both the artists and the audience.”

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Earth Day was Wednesday, but it’s never too late to think about being a little more earth friendly. More specifically for this column, we can focus on taking a greener approach to style.

I recently attended the fourth annual Nashville Fashion Week and a big topic was the fashion industry’s responsibility to create more sustainable and eco-friendly products.

It may be hard to imagine, but our clothes and how they are made have a huge effect on the environment.

According to www.fibre2fashion.com, the clothes we wear and the textiles they are made from can cause a great deal of damage.

The following are examples of the impact the fashion industry has on the environment.

The pesticides that farmers use to protect textiles as they grow can harm wild life, contaminate other products and get into the food we eat.

-The chemicals that are used to bleach and color textiles can damage the environment and people’s health.

-Old clothes that we throw away take up precious space in landfill sites, which is filling up rapidly.

-Most of the textile machineries cause noise, sound and air pollution.

-Over-usage of natural resources like plants, water, etc. depletes or disturbs ecological balance.

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-The working conditions in the textile and clothing industry are of sub-standard.

-Exploitation of animals often goes hand-in-hand with intensive farming practices that damage the environment as a whole.

Sounds pretty bleak, right? However, there is hope, and the fashion world is embracing it.

The eco-friendly industry has grown tremendously over the past few years. Fashion designers such as Stella McCartney practice cruelty-free techniques and excludes the use of animals in her designs.

Eco-friendly brands have become more popular with the increasing awareness of sweatshops, animal cruelty and resource scarcity. According to style site thefashionglobe.com, our neighboring state Alabama is home to a lifestyle company Alabama Chanin, which produces everything from ready-to-wear to wedding dresses to quilts and placemats. They make clothes with organic and recycled material and utilize the slow movement, which promotes the wellbeing of society, individuals and the natural movement. More importantly, their clothes are made locally in the town of Florence, Alabama.

Florence is also home to designer Billy Reid, who is also eco-friendly and totally worth checking out.

There are also vegan shoes such as “Kailia,” an eco-friendly shoe brand created by designer Nancy Dong based in Bologna, Italy. The company collaborates closely with European family-owned factories for the creation of beautiful, handmade shoes. The factories use water-based glues and polyurethane soles rather than more toxic vinyl and PVC. Her shoes are also made with organic linen and cotton, a quality that other eco-friendly brands share.

Eco-friendly and organic beauty lines come from makeup artists such as Kate O’Brien, who was reluctant to let her daughter wear make-up due to the harsh chemicals, so she created Alima pure, a 100 percent pure mineral pigment makeup line.

Brands like Kailia and O’Brien are making a name for themselves by offering handcrafted and homemade items keeping Mother Nature in mind.

While all of these companies should be applauded for the eco-conscious efforts, I must warn you, the price for such items will leave you a bit weak in the knees and in the pocketbook. With the time, attention and earth-friendly care each of these items gets, there is a cost.

However, you also have the knowledge and comfort that you are doing something good for the earth by buying such items.

I would also like to think that if buying items like this becomes the norm, then price will become less of an issue.

So I hope I’ve given you some food for thought and a list of designers to Google in your free time. While I love a good bargain as much as the next fashionista, I also love Mother Earth, too. Here’s to a greener fashion industry.

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Lacey-Lee channelled Priscilla Presley for her bridal look. Her dress was an original vintage number which she had reworked to the exact style she wanted. The groom, Cam, is of Orcadian heritage so he wanted to wear traditional Scottish attire. Not an obvious paring you might think, but it really works!

The theme of combining both their passions continued into the rest of the wedding. “Cam and I always knew we weren’t going to have a normal wedding”, Lacey-Lee said. “We both have quirky interests and we wanted it to be a collaboration of lots of different elements. We are both touring musicians so music was also always going to play a huge part. I decided to DJ which allowed me to really set the tone exactly how we wanted it to feel. It also made the evening really special.”

“Our catering was also unique. We didn’t want the typical buffet or sit down mean so when everyone entered the reception we had the room centred around a huge food display with beautiful canapés and a dessert bar. Then later, we served gourmet tacos!”

The day was held at Whonnock Lake Centre in Maple Ridge, just outside of Vancouver. “I would call our wedding theme ‘Mystical Mod’”, Lacey-Lee continued. “The moody, enchanted forest backdrop with traditional Scottish styling representing the mystical elements, and the vintage brass décor and sixties styling represented the Mod.”

“A lot of my DIY was buying the brass items for the décor from thrift stores. I also created all the signage and laid out the reception furniture. I loved how everything came together in the end. It’s how I visualised it in my head. From the mood, décor, food, music… It was perfect.”

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