We’ve said it before: the ‘Hip City/Hippest Town in New Jersey’ designation for Red Bank has got to go. It’s so rusty it creaks. Even the folks at Red Bank RiverCenter steer clear of it in marketing the town, they tell us.
Ah, but hips, well… they can stay. After all, they’ve only just arrived, in a sense, and they’re doing their, um, parts to help give the town some renewed sizzle as a destination for fashion-conscious women.
How recently? redbankgreen readers may recall that it was just over a year ago that Red Bank had its first-ever lingerie fashion show, or the first one in recent memory, at least. Sponsored by lingerie retailer Sweetest Sin Boutique and held at the now-shuttered Ashes Cigar Club, the packed-house event brought a flash of sexy to a downtown that’s better known for family-themed doings.
Sweetest Sin owner Angie Courtney doesn’t claim to have started the renewed interest in women’s stores downtown. But she clearly gets credit for helping revive it with her Naughty or Nice Lingerie Fashion Show of December, 2009.
Soon thereafter, Rosa Davis of Bella Mystique put on the first (as far as we know) open-air fashion show featuring local women modeling swimsuits and casualwear in the courtyard of the Dublin House on Monmouth Street. Davis followed it with two more shows in town before the year was over.
With the additions of Urban Outfitters, Dor L’Dor, Syndicated Clothing and others to a retail scene that already featured the likes of Funk and Standard, Stokaboka Surf & Skate and CoCo Pari, is it too early to declare that the ‘hip’ replacement is underway and that its basis is clothing?
“I don’t know if I started something, but I hope I did,” Courtney tells redbankgreen. “Fashion shows are great.” And in their own way, she says, “they bring the community together.”
So she’s planning to keep the interest level rising. This Thursday, Courtney has booked the second installment of what she says will be an annual event. Whereas the first show had a Christmas theme, this one is keyed onto Valentine’s Day.
About a dozen models will take to a runway at Taste in the Galleria at Red Bank on Bridge Avenue, strutting sexy lines of brassieres, panties, camisoles and more.
“They’re sweet and sexy, with lots of reds and pinks,” Courtney says. “You can’t go wrong with reds, pinks and blacks.”
Admission to the 7p event is $20 per person, which includes drink specials, an afterparty with the models and more. Some of the proceeds of the event will be donated to VDAY, an international group dedicated to ending violence against women and girls. For reservations, call 732.747.3550.
