When's the best time of year for a Charity Fashion Show?
 

I'm hoping that some of you will have had experience with putting on a Charity Fashion Show?
I just participated in my first planning meeting for the Fashion Show and the other alums want to have it on November 23rd! I don't really think this is a great time of year to have it:
a) It's too close to Christmas, and with people being so busy before Christmas, a lot of Christmas parties are happening in late November already
b) It is a non-season for clothes: too late for Christmas dresses, too early for prom dresses and the Spring clothes don't hit the shops till January
c) Before Christmas, everyone is saving up money for presents for their families, friends and co-workers, not to mention every other charitable cause is hitting up people for donations.

Can someone please give me advice on this? I voiced that I felt that this time of year was not great, and perhaps September or January would be better, but my concerns merely fell upon deaf ears. HELP! :(

You are on the right track ...
 

The majority of shops/designers are not going to have any of their 'Spring' collections in stock until the mid/end of January after they have cleared out their Winter/Christmas collections. You will be hard pressed to find companies who will want to participate in Nov simply because they won't want to look bad because they don't have the stock. (And who wants to look at Spring clothes in Nov?)

Mind you - if they are really bent on having on that date - why not make it a Party Attire Fashion Show? At least this keeps with the season a bit ...

Depending on who your audience is (is it just alums or collegians too? General Public?), this IS a busy time of year. When is the collegiate chapter having Initiations? This may conflict with their schedules & midterms. Being that Nov 23 is a Saturday, you are already starting to run into Christmas parties and plays.

Finally, will this be an evenings or daytime event? A lot of places have medium to larger sized facilities booked already for that time of year. If you have an idea where you want to have it, maybe see what their availablity is like.

You are right - Sept, Jan, May are usually the best time to holds functions like this.

Good Luck !!

:D

Pittsburgh Alumnae Panhellenic usually holds their scholarship fashion show around late March - early April. We always invite the collegians who are the scholarship recipients, so we have to err on the early side because Pitt gets out of school extremely early (they have trimesters).

November 23 just sounds about 50 different degrees of bad, for all the reasons you mentioned, plus weather (I forget where you are, but around here, we start fearing snow around Nov. 1). The last thing that harried Christmas shoppers and Thanksgiving planners are going to want to do is go to a fashion show, especially one where people are asking them to donate.

If they want to do winter clothes, mid to late October is the latest I would try it.

My sorority held a fashion show. It was fun, but we failed to raise money for charity because the overhead was too expensive. :( I hope that you have better luck than we did.

My local alumna group hosts a fashion show. They have a very successful event every year, and they hold it early in August, so potential new members and their mothers can come. There are always references to the new school year, and all of the local boutiques, department stores and trunk shows from our area have clothing in it.

On top of that, they have the show showcase clothing for children, (which always brings in "Awwahhh's"), young teens, teens, collegiates, and young women and older women. They cover the gamut, which helps them be so successful.