Holiday Fashion at Crave

Desireé Gregg, Ashley Hodges, and Carol Burke found strength in numbers at the Crave event, where Hodges’s electric-blue suede boots stood out in the crowd. “Aren’t they great? I found them on eBay.” 

Nancy Zadoff looked chic in a bight olive pashmina, the perfect complement to her knit coat.

Fitness instructors Charli Nesbitt and Kelly Wear shopped for the folks on their holiday gift lists. “Well, we should be, but we keep finding things for ourselves,” said Nesbitt, who sported knit boot-covers from Switch Shoes in Multnomah Village.

Shoppers flaunted the evening’s preferred accessory: a bright pink scarf.

A more traditional holly-berry red showed up in this little girl’s Christmas costume—part tulle-skirted ballerina, part elf.

Resplendent in polka dots, four-month-old May Wiglesworth surveyed the bustling crowd from the arms of her mother, Jenny Wiglesworth, designer of the JW handbag line that was available for sale.

Kimberly Thompson was on the lookout for new and different jewelry. When it comes to her own look, “I like to mix vintage—like my boots—with new things," she says. "A head-to-toe look is boring.”

Tracy White was a model for I Walk the Vine, a line of tees and tanks for wine enthusiasts. Her own look was equally runway ready: a sporty jacket from Nordstrom, and jeans tucked into fur-lined boots she’d discovered at Payless ShoeSource.
 

Representing Gyspy Chic boutique were owner Jamie Jensen and jewelry designer Cindy Jack. The popular N Mississippi Avenue shop used customers and friends as models in the evening’s fashion show.

Cindy Jack wore feather earrings of her own design.

Sarah Halloran, a housewares buyer for Fred Meyer, looked sharp in menswear-inspired pieces. She says that anything with a warm and fuzzy message is hot. “Anything that says ‘live, love, laugh’ flies out the door; people want to be reassured right now.”

Looking posh in a buff cashmere coat by BCBG, Holly Jarvis and friend Monica Mayer (equally refined in a Nicole Miller topper) consolidated their holiday shopping, as they arrived at Crave fresh from the Lloyd Center Nordstrom.

Intel coworkers Tito Chowdhury and Nate Derstein braved the mostly female crowd. As a Portland Fashion Week organizer, Chowdhury is no stranger to great runway presentation. “I’d like to incorporate the Crave concept in to one of our events,” he says. “Fashion and the marketplace go hand-in-hand in New York and LA; they can here, too.”