Romi Beppu, left, and Kamakoa Page show off a couple of designs from Bliss Lau's Fall-Winter 2011 through movement.
Back in February, I watched Bliss Lau's exquisite "Embraced" Fall-Winter 2011 collection come to life via dancers online, so I was happy when I heard Hawaii RED Magazine was going to present the show locally, a homecoming for the designer.
It came together at the last minute, so there wasn't a lot of time to promote the show or audition dancers, but Bliss, who obsesses over every detail down to the nail designs on their fingers and toes (her notebook contains pages of her nail illustrations and The Spa at Trump was called on to recreate her black-and-nude design) considered herself blessed to have found all four of the dancers she needed within an hour of auditioning them on the 26th. Having been through the dance search before in New York, where she now lives and creates, she knew exactly what she was looking for, dancers who were strong, sensuous and womanly.
The show took place May 29 at The Waikiki EDITION Lobby Bar, and modeling Bliss's latest leather-and-chain body armor were local dancers Romi Beppu, Kamakoa Page and Cassandra Glaser, and visiting from Canada, Melina Ehrhardt. Erhardt is a multi-tasker, who' here training for the Iron Man competition. When she's not acting, dancing, singing, swimming, running, bicycling, etc., she's also designing accessories from tire rubber!
It was a homecoming for Romi, former principal dancer for the Boston Ballet, as well.
The "Embraced" collection was inspired by movement and balance, with each piece offering a suggestion of apparel and the power of transparency. Because her background is in fashion design, rather than strictly accessories or jewelry, she pieced leather strips in a way that mimics the seams of garments. As usual, many of her pieces are versatile. Pieces shown as skirts can also be worn over the shoulders.
