It's Monday September the 24 around 5:09PM and

Hot Box Bare Accessories Party

Okay, I'll admit it. I don't think I've ever been to a fashion show before. Whatever. On Friday, The Vancouverite (meaning me and barely-contributing Editor Josee) and our recently appointed fashion advisor/moral compass Lisa took up someone's (read the lovely Nicole Stewart from The Honey Mustard) crazy offer to let us come to a fashion show at Hot Box Accessories (2560 Main St.) Truthfully, the only other thing even sort of related to the world of fashion for me last week was trying to figure how Gossip Girl was the being declared the most important show about New York ever. And I was still just trying to figure out why they cast people who looked 30. Crap, where was I?

It was hard to keep up to be honest. First our cab driver, the first Vancouver cab driver I've ever had who was rocking some seriously awesome tunes took us to Main & 25th instead of 2560 Main. A. We weren't paying attention. B.The pre-party smug cocktails and appies at Gotham prolly impacted our ability to function. C. The music made it impossible to care. D. PS: It was our fault, not his.

Oh, right the Hot Box Bare Accessories Fashion Show. The enchanting candy of an evening of "male and female models baring it all, wearing only body paint and accessories" and "complimentary bar, DJ, and R-rated action" kind of had the trio of us at hello. The reality was, I don't think I even had the clothes to pull off attending this kind of thing. I tried to buy myself some Chuck Taylor's but then I was like, "you look ridiculous, like a hipster douchebag.Just stop."

So what did it all mean? It meant that in a space smaller than my apartment, you had the rubbing of elbows with all sorts of characters, even the models. I'm not saying this was the Cantina from Star Wars or anything, it was just a well balanced crowd. It could have been the walk from 25th and Main, but it was hot in there. At least you could step out on mainstreet and watch the models dancing on the stage outside, that was pretty rad. And these girls we're working these bags like their life depended on it. The supplies of Corona weren't plentiful enough to cool down but (I think) they had Hester Creek boxed wine, which is kind of ironic and sweet and served in plastic shot glasses - er, wine glasses.

Between learning all about Matt & Nat and their positivity message and their handbags, to the amazing selection of duct tape wallets with amazing skulls on them, to the Goorin Brother's hats (hat's are back? that's cool.) it was enough to just wonder what the heck was going down. Particularly the burlesque models doing their body paint thing and girating uncomforatably, the wide range of people in attendence. (Check out pictures from the evening at Flickr courtesy Urban Mixer)

Let me just say for the record, that serving drinks to people in a small funky shop like this seems to inspire "drunk shopping", a sport that never really caught on for men or the Olympics yet, but seems to be extreme sport for the ladies. I think our trip to check out the fashion show ended up with our team buying: 1 gray handbag, 1 green belt, 1 amazing Goorin Bros. hat, 1 pair sunglasses, 1 free Mat and Nat change purse in "mustard" (which along with the gray was discussed about in the context of fall color amazingness) and 1 secret birthday gift. Hey weren't we supposed to be covering this party? Bah! I guess that was half the fun. Had the "Man-Bling" section been stocked full of the same kind of sparkly bits that captured the girl's eyes, I might have tried this out too, but given the Chuck Taylor fiasco, I wasn't all that keen on trying to pull off leather wristbands.

And after that, I offer a simple 5 word review for Hot Box: Funkn' Sassy Accessory Magic Emporium

PS: We wore our sunglasses for the rest of the night, but that is a story for another time.

Posted by Jackson Murphy | Link |