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Gatsby Showcase Gets DC Excited for a New Season of Fashion

Model walks with glassware available from L & B Concepts

The Gatsby Showcase, what event organizers called “the most exclusive fashion experience of the season,” sauntered the catwalk in the ballroom of the Mandarin Oriental earlier this month.

A prelude to DC Fashion Week, taking place February 24-27, 2022, The Gatsby Showcase invited a duo of designers from a little farther down South (Atlanta and Dallas) to present their extensive collections of evening wear alongside a growing homegrown luxury event retail company.

Designer Ese Azenabor takes a bow with her daughter

The show was commentated by the one and only Audrey Smaltz, Fashion Editor for Ebony magazine in the 1970s and industry insider for some six decades, who introduced a salvo of styles, volleying between collections of L & B Concepts, Ese Azenabor‘s eponymous fashions, and Daniel Mofor’s Don Morphy.

Elevated men’s apparel, vibrant and exquisite beaded gowns — and even crystal tableware — walked the runway, getting Washingtonians excited about dressing up and entertaining again.

Models in garments from Don Morphy and Ese Azenabor

Because as Fitzgerald writes in The Great Gatsby, “Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.”

Among those spotted in attendance were Joy Kingsley-Ibeh, Barnette Holston, Sophie Blake, Ean Williams, Derrick Rutledge, Gigi McMillan, and Kara Allan.

The event also served as a benefit for the Sitar Arts Center, a place that seeks to “transform the lives of children, teens, and young adults born int a world of unequal access to opportunity.”