St. Louis is still a town where most people need to be told what to wear. We abide to trends and we don’t like rattling any cages. In the midwest, we don’t rile too easily. It takes a while for the next fad to bubble up and when it does it becomes a sort of uniform for those in the know. Well… a small and daring group of St. Louis-based designers isn’t buying that notion and that was in evidence Tuesday night at the launch of the latest installment of Saint Louis Fashion Week. The Project Design show, instigated by a true supporter for the local fashion community Dwight Carter, was held at the Contemporary Art Museum and the near capacity crowd was an atypical mix of fashionistas and fashion-focused men. A guy in a white blazer, bow tie and jeans stood inches away from another in a British rocker tee and skintight jeans. A women in a black cocktail gown stood next to a gal in cute mall-variety dress and black polka dot rain boots and they were all within a few feet of each other on a floor crammed with people. Is it me or doesn’t that just make you smile?

So the show started with a “huh?” when a nice showing of Goodwill (yes, as in old donated clothing, that was styled to look fresh, but was still old clothing and dated by definition) was tossed in as an opening act. Love the idea of making reuse fashionable, but not when my mouth is watering for what’s genuinely fresh and new. Before I noticed that it was the Goodwill portion of the show, I wrote down, “been there…” For once, I was right.

Thank you, Paul Gibson for making the wait worthwhile. His collection called Reign included some sexy, casual day looks that epitomized the notion of being effortlessly cool. I preferred his looks for men (which made me think of the rocker-friendly-hipster-meets-urban looks of designer John Varvatos). But the selection of women’s ensembles were mostly complimentary. He took paint-stained denim and crafted a body-hugging strapless dress for the girls and a hip pair of fitted and flared (60s retro) style pants for boys that I loved. Then he gave men an extra layer for fun. Over jersey tee shirts he slipped a shrug of sorts, it was basically a crewneck (not a shirt, but a neckline) and sleeves. It accentuates the shoulders, adds weight to the chest and works wonders on making waists appear smaller, who says guys don’t care about that too. Gibson’s miniskirts, however, missed the mark with a very noticeable mishap in shaping the waists, but we won’t hold that against him.

Check our fashion week schedule in case you want to see the action in person.