Pat Cleveland, Stephen Burrows, Philip Bloch + More attend 3rd Women & Fashion Film Fest

The Women & Fashion FilmFest brings together the fashion, media and entertainment industries to celebrate and empower women through film.  In its third year, the event is filled with panel discussions and film screenings that focus on women’s issues.

 

I was privileged to kick off the festivities at the South Street Seaport where I joined legends like designer Steven Burrows, stylist Phillip Bloch and model and Halston muse Pat Cleveland for an evening of drinks and mingling. I was excited to see Pat once again since her dramatic storytelling for the Vestojseries at the MoMA PS1 museum.  Read more about it here.

The event was a definite success as it drew people from all over the world. I met Patricia Toczynska, a photographer and journalist from Warsaw, Poland and Mari Malek (also known a DJ Stiletto), a music maven and model who hails from South Sudan. Mari stood out that night in her fierce embellished jumpsuit and floor length fur coat. But she also stands for a cause with her nonprofit, Stand 4 Education, that focuses on providing education resources to young people from war torn countries.

I also caught up with one of the event’s media sponsors, Tony Triumph, a model and blogger at The Triumphant Scoop who helped to organize the press and planning for the event. He seemed to be impressed with the night saying,  “I’ve enjoyed diving deep into panels that have explored uncharted territory of the fashion & film industry. WFF boasts a fascinating intimacy and candidacy within its panels and empowerment talks, which indeed, parallels to it’s purpose.”

The night capped off with a series of speeches from the founder of Women & Fashion FilmFest  Jeanine Jeo-Hi Kim who thanked her fashionable guests for another successful event  and UN Ambassador Henry MacDonald  who spoke out on violence against women.

The final speech came from the first curvy supermodel, Emme, who accepted the Visionary Award for being a positive role model for young women. Her documentary, Body Beautiful, aims to shift the perception of how women feel about themselves by asking the question, what does your body want to say to the world?  “If we don’t feel good about our bodies, we don’t go after our dreams,” she said. “So we want to be able to connect on a soulful level. Where we see that we are one. And when you understand that we are one, we look at our bodies as the celebration of who we are in difference.”

Check out more photos of the fashionable guests below:

(Photos courtesy of David Berman and Wire Image).