Slow Fashion: the Little Black Dress Party

I'm helping to plan the coolest little fundraiser ever: the Little Black Dress Party, on the evening of May 5th. We've been talking about it on our Facebook event page and on Twitter using the #yegLBD hashtag.

The Uniform Project expressed as a formula, via.

#yegLBD is a slow-fashion fundraiser inspired by the Uniform Project, wherein Sheena Matheiken wore the same little black dress, creatively styled with vintage or handmade accessories, for a whole year to raise money for the Akanksha Foundation (who educate underpriviledged kids in India). At year's end, a series of people followed in Sheena's footsteps for a month at a time to raise funds for other deserving charities. Here's Sheena's talk at TEDxDubai, to help you understand why we were so very excited by the Uniform Project:

Inspiring, right?

So, the idea of the party is that we all shop our closets and wear our LBD (or an equivalent basic) accessorized to express our personal styles, have a fabulous night out with our friends, and raise money for both Akanksha and a brand-new locally-based charity called Literacy Without Borders. LWB will partner volunteer teachers from developed and developing nations to set up literacy projects with lasting community-based support: 

How: By sharing its knowledge of effective approaches to literacy and harnessing the commitment of local volunteers, Literacy Without Borders helps communities adapt literacy models to their local customs. This way, each community will be more likely to create truly meaningful programs, better positioning their members to implement and direct the programs on their own. LWB Ambassadors are deployed as a pair to communities in development for a period of 18 months with the goal of bringing together the people within each community who are most passionate and able to develop sustainable literacy initiatives in their community.  Initially, these local volunteers will work closely with Literacy Without Borders’ Literary Ambassadors to adapt a literacy model that best suits the community, and eventually, they will run, direct, and teach the programs on their own.

 Our little party could truly make a huge difference for LWB, since they're at the stage where they're applying for charitable status, printing their first marketing materials, and embarking on their first pilot projects. We're so excited to be working with such an amazing charity during their formative moments.

Uniform Project's charity-of-choice the Akanksha Foundation, formed in 1990, educate underprivileged children in 58 centres and 6 schools in Mumbai and Pune and publish curricula for use by other educators, and cohosted the InspirED Conference on innovation in education in 2010. Photo via.

Mmmm, martinis. Via the Devlin's Facebook group.

We're also really excited to be having our party at Devlin's Cocktail Lounge, an upscale martini bar on Whyte Avenue. They're going to create a special drink and appetizer menu for the evening just for us, and the room's cozy-but-luxurious feeling will give our party the perfect atmosphere. It's going to be a fun night of socializing, with photography by the incredibly talented Aminah Syed (seriously, how lucky are we?); a silent auction of items generously donated by local, independently-owned shops; and an accessories-swap table.

Our giant tip jar is ready to go. Well, I might redo the Sharpie.

If you're in Edmonton, tickets for the Little Black Dress Party are now on sale at Eventbrite. The $30 ticket price includes a martini and an appetizer, and every penny that doesn't cover your food and drink - more than half of the ticket cost - will be donated to the Akanksha Foundation and Literacy Without Borders. It's a small room so be sure not to wait to get your ticket - we're sure to sell out.

If you're not in Edmonton, why not hold a Little Black Dress Party of your own?