On February 21st, 2014, The National Arts Club Fashion Committee (www.nationalartsclub.org) whose mission it is to educate and enlighten through the medium of fashion hosted an edutaining event highlighting this Chinese New Year, The Year of the Horse. Along with a lot of surprise activities was special guest speaker, Evie Evangelou, president and founder of Fashion 4 Development (www.fashion4development.com) .
Now upon entering the room of this event, there was a glitter of red accents (red representing fire which symbolizes the idea of good fortune – especially during The Chinese New Year and other Chinese holidays) and a table full of small plastic gift bags with red envelopes, pencils and a fortune cookie in each one.
Red for good fortune and prosperity.
Here are those 2014 Good Fortune gift bags!
I was then quickly informed that I was to write whatever good fortune that I wanted to have in 2014 on the small white paper found in the red envelope because later on I was going to have the opportunity to be able to feed the hungry lion in The Lion Dance with this envelope and that meant that there was a good chance that good fortune would follow.
Now how could one say no to that!
Getting ready to write my 2014 prosperity wishes and feed that hungry lion!
Yeah-Feeding The Hungry Lion Dance-What would you ask for in 2014?
Then I was introduced to Aurora Acquino (left in photo below), a well-known, New York City Fashion Coordinator and Angela Willy (to the right in the photo below) a member of the club’s fashion committee who helped put the event together. Aurora and Angela both looking pretty great while making their Chinese New Year celebratory fashion statement known to all!!!
Aurora Acquino and Angie Willy
I also want to share that then listening to Evie Evangelou, president and founder of Fashion 4 Development (www.f4d.org) was an extremely inspiring experience.
Ms. Evangelou shared that the mission of Fashion 4 Development (www.fashion4development.com) is to harness the power of the fashion and the beauty industry and to implement creative strategies for sustainable economic growth for global communities worldwide.
Ms. Evangelou also said that she is using The United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals and Every Woman, Every Child ( a U.N. initiative spearheaded by the secretary-general) to help pinpoint the fashion industry’s efforts in areas like sustainability practices, wellness, economic growth and cultural preservation.
A wonderful movie was then shown highlighting the mission of Fashion 4 Development.
It was the story of how Angel Chang, an American fashion designer went to rural China for three years to help those rural communities preserve their cultural garments in an ethical and sustainable way.
Not only did the movie show how using cultural fashion could be used to create a sustainable and ethical income for the people of these rural communities but how it would also give the younger generation the opportunity not to have to leave their community because they now they had an additional way to create sustainable income for themselves.
So happy Chinese New Year and click HERE to learn more about Fashion 4 Development and see how you can help join the cause!
