Last week, Park City Fashion Week hosted its fifth annual runway show alongside the Sundance Film Festival. Despite last-minute venue challenges that forced the event to be postponed and relocated, organizers pivoted quickly with the desire to still hold the event during Sundance and secured a new space at Black Rock Mountain Resort.
Behind the scenes, leading up to show time, bodies moved in every direction along the hallway that led past a dozen rooms to the event space as models and designers prepared to take the floor, with last minute touches to makeup and hair, and quick alterations to the garments.
Attendees were welcomed into a space where nearly every corner inspired a selfie — in most cases, multiple. Runway lighting set the tone, while artwork by artist Eddy Ekpo lining the room added to the appeal.
As the show started, organizer Kim Kienow spoke, thanking guests for their attendance before introducing the show, which featured designer collections and styles from local boutiques: The Collective Park City, Flight Boutique, Panache Boutique and Burns Cowboy Co.
Highlights from these local collections included:
The Collective Park City
Flight Boutique Park City
Panache Boutique Park City
Burns Cowboy Shop
Utah Indigenous Fashion Week
This year’s show also featured a dedicated runway segment highlighting three local indigenous designers — Jessica Wiarda, Faith Browning and Bryan Beyal — in partnership with Utah Indigenous Fashion Week.
Kienow said the collaboration was intentional, aligning with Sundance’s longstanding acknowledgment of the Indigenous land on which the festival takes place.
Before the designers showed their curations, a powwow Fancy Shaw dance was performed by Jessy Chief, one of the models with Utah Indigenous Fashion Week, and drummer Philip Manning.
“We are mimicking a butterfly with every dance move. We’re staying on beat with the drum, but we’re also gliding through the air.”
Jessy Chief
Chief said she applied to participate in the event in November and was excited to be selected, describing the experience as meaningful both personally and culturally.
“It was really amazing last night to be in my regalia,” she said. “There are some people out there that are not knowledgeable or aren’t completely educated on Native Americans, and to bring that aspect to Sundance and being able to share my culture with them, in my mind, it made a really big impact for the people I got to interact with and people that got to see me dance.”
Additionally, Utah designers Davis Hong, Hannah Gordon and Heggy Gonzalez, all previous event participants, returned to the Park City Fashion Week stage to show their latest work. Highlights from their collections include:
Hannah Gordon
“The inspiration behind this collection comes from Southern Utah, the Red Rock, the sand, bentonite hills, which are these incredible fusion up deep and bright tones and color tones that just fuse together and harmonize so beautifully,” said designer Gordon before her collection was shown.
Heggy Gonzalez
Designer Gonzalez said that other than the show simply being fun, the energy and community are what keep her coming back.
“We have a really cool fashion scene here in Utah, it’s just a matter of providing these cool outlets for Utah artists and out-of-state artists,” Gonzalez said. “We’re fashion designers, but we’re all artists, and the community here is very loving and supportive of each other.”
Gonzalez, who is also a hairstylist, described her artistic approach as organic, saying she allows things to develop naturally rather than forcing a structure. That philosophy also informs how she thinks about who her clothing is for, a point she expanded on when discussing representation and fit in the fashion industry.
“I think it’s very important that we have clothing that fits all body types,” Gonzalez said. “In the fashion industry, that’s so important, to not just have clothing for one particular type of body. That’s something that I really love about mine, is I celebrate all body types because they’re all beautiful.”
Expressing her love for the style and details found on ballroom dresses, Gonzalez said she collaborated on some of her pieces with her sister and ballroom dress designer Jennifer Bernardi this year.
“She was gracious enough to help with a couple of the looks to kind of create that flow of the movement of it through ballroom,” Gonzalez said.
Davis Hong
Other designer brands included We Norwegians, a Scandinavian luxury and lifestyle brand, which opened its first ever retail space in Park City back in 2018; SKYAIRE, the label designed by Denver-based stylist and designer Skye Barker Maa; Texas-based Nomadic Reign, which blends history and elegance; and NBA champion Lamar Odom’s new fashion brand Le Saint Noir, which made its debut this year on the Park City Fashion Week runway. Highlights from these collections included:
Nomadic Reign
While visiting the Sundance Film Festival last year to explore whether the festival could be a place for her brand to establish a presence, Michelle Nichols Assiter, founder of Nomadic Reign, connected with Park City Fashion Week, designers and others involved, forming relationships that would later lead to deeper collaboration.
A few months ago, she received a message about getting involved in the show, which led to their participation this year, she said.
“This experience has been absolutely tremendous,” Nichols Assiter said. “Mr. Redford is a tremendous icon in my eyes, and such a loss for the world. He was such an amazing human being, and was involved in philanthropy and preservation, and we just were huge fans of his as well. And so to create the Sundance Film Festival, and then for all of these extra entities to be a part of it, is just tremendous.”
Nomadic Reign specializes in one-of-a-kind coats made from antique carriage blankets dating from the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Nichols Assiter said the brand’s signature pieces are created using original wool textiles produced between roughly 1880 and 1920 by mills across the United States, many of which initially manufactured horse blankets and military uniforms during wartime before evolving into carriage blankets used by frontier families.
Each coat is fully repurposed from these historical materials, retaining original details such as stenciled patterns and metal grommets, with no two pieces exactly alike.
The brand works primarily with private clients and direct to consumer on its website rather than wholesale, offering custom-fitted, handmade men’s and women’s coats, said Nichols Assiter.
“We also do a few each season where we hand bead them with gemstones. It’s very time-consuming, so we only do perhaps four or five a year,” she said, adding that these exclusive options are only available to returning customers. “Once you buy a coat, you are able to see products that the general public isn’t able to see.”
After the show, Park City Fashion Week attendees took advantage of the opportunity to shop for a coat in person.
Le Saint Noir
We Norwegians
SKYEAIRE
As the Sundance Film Festival prepares to leave Park City for a new home in Boulder, Colorado, Park City Fashion Week plans to continue building on the community it has established locally. Founder Kienow said the event has grown enough to stand on its own and will remain a winter fixture in Park City, with potential plans to expand into additional shows or seasonal events in the future.
To stay up to date with future events, follow @parkcity_fashionweek on Instagram.