Fashion Week Cleveland in May

Fashion Week Cleveland founder Donald Shingler and artistic director Ernest Brown detailed the schedule for this year’s event on Tuesday. Shingler and Brown made the announcement during a public event at Tower City Center, flanked by models dressed by local designers and two Fiat 500s by Gucci.

“Education, design and retail are the three main themes, and we’ll be having an absolute extravaganza this year,” said Brown.

Fashion Week Cleveland began back in 2002, and is one of only fourteen internationally-recognized fashion week events in North America. It is the third-largest fashion show of its kind, behind only New York Fashion Week and Los Angeles Fashion Week. This year’s event kicks off on Friday, May 4.

The schedule includes:

• Retail’s Night Out (Friday, May 4): A boutique/gallery hop and trunk shows.

• GlamJam (Saturday, May 5): A wearable art, music and fashion show at the Halle Building.

• “Dressed” (Friday, May 11): A screening of the documentary about former Cleveland designer Nary Manivong, followed by a meet-and-greet with Manivong and the film’s director, at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

• Runway shows/black-tie gala (Saturday, May 12): A look at collections from local designers, cocktail party, trunk shows and more.