Fall Into Fashion Week MN

Mark your calendars for fall Fashion Week MN starting Sept. 23

Local Cotierie will be a part of the fall Fashion Week MN. Photo by Josh Stokes.
Local Coterie will be a part of Fashion Week MN with a runway and pop-up on Sept. 25 featuring Alma Mia, Joeleen Torvick, Scott J Lehmann, Tessa Louise, Way the Label, ACG, and Slate Collective, as well as up-and-coming brands. 

Photo by Josh Stokes

Every fall and spring, Fashion Week MN brings together the Twin Cities’ vibrant fashion designers, buyers, and lovers for a weeklong event. Since it began in 2015, it has grown from nine events to this fall’s 20-plus events from Sept. 23-29. Fashion Group International of Minneapolis-St. Paul has been with it from the beginning with its Fall Into Luxury big-name runway show, but this year welcomes in new events in both their first years and legacy events of the Twin Cities.

“These events that you’re seeing are a lot more grassroots,” Fashion Week MN co-founder Jahna Peloquin says. (Peloquin is also a former editor and contributor to Minnesota Monthly.) “A lot of these are small, independent brands coming together, usually collaborating with other brands to make these events happen.”

For those who haven’t been, you shouldn’t go in expecting New York Fashion Week—but that’s also not what Peloquin and other co-founder Sarah Edwards are going for. Instead, expect what are often intimate experiences where you can meet the makers and really see how everything fits into the Twin Cities’ ecosystem.

“Even a couple of years ago, I remember some news stations seeming so surprised that we had a fashion week,” Peloquin says. “Now they’re more aware there’s a local fashion scene, so hopefully this helps continue the trend.”

Fall Fashion Week MN is a mix of runway shows, special marketplace pop-ups, and panels, so expect a little of everything. (Peloquin recommends, of course, going to something you’re interested in but also going with friends who might bring you to an event that you wouldn’t have picked.)

For the first time, Fresh Traditions Fashion Show (Season XII) by the Center for Hmong Arts & Talent is part of Fashion Week MN after moving from its normal November time to Sept. 29. As Peloquin notes, it’s a beautiful blend of the unique and the Minnesotan. Another event that is back again to Fashion Week MN is the 15th annual Full Fashion Panic by Minneapolis College of Art and Design’s Mechademia conference. Hosted by Project Runway alum Samantha Rei, the show looks at how anime, manga, and fashion overlap Sept. 30, the day after Fashion Week MN technically ends—but who’s complaining?

Other events include a live taping of the Blunt Cuts podcast (Sept. 23), a luxury-style evening with Nigerian-Minnesotan designer Aisha Umar of Fulbekloset (Sept. 24), a runway show of hats through the decades by Karen Morris Millinery (Sept. 26), and a curated salon with live opera and baroque influences called S’Habiller Avec Amour (Sept. 29).

This season more than ever, not only were Edwards and Peloquin approaching people they heard about through the grapevine—people whom they had never met reached out to them, making for potentially the most diverse lineup yet.

Attend Fashion Week MN’s fall kick off at The Foshay – W Minneapolis on Sept. 20 for a night of new faces, live fashion presentations, pop-ups, and a DJ, and check out the rest of the week’s schedule at fashionweekmn.com. (Hint: They involve jewelry pop-ups, a hair styles show, a documentary screening, aviation couture, and a move from the runway to installation pieces about the unknown.)