Best Dressed 2012 – Sparkle Edition

I could have spent this past Saturday night remembering the very day my employer ceased to exist, due mainly to a lack of funds for a good stiff drink or three… dozen. I’m not certain how else to “celebrate the one-year anniversary where over 1,000 people from New York to Los Angeles — including over 200 in Louisville, yours truly among them — ended up on the unemployment line after the company failed to survive the ongoing recession, though I did hear the former Louisville office is now occupied by Sazerac, who had built a bar in one of the wings.

Instead of remembering that black day, however, I had a press pass to collect…

This year’s edition of The Voice-Tribune‘s Best Dressed Presented by Churchill Downs brought me back to the Louisville Marriott Downtown on 2nd & Jefferson. Benefitting the West End School, a non-profit private school for at-risk youth from the sixth through eighth grades, Best Dressed showed off various trends for 2012 and 2013, including head-to-toe white, sequins and sheer dresses, a performance by the Louisville Ballet, and this year’s nominees wearing their finest down the white runway.

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This adorable lad is the son of Best Dressed nominee Darla Hartlage, herself wearing a white/gold mullet dress with matching clutch and silver heels. This photo was taken for my friend and NYC high-end jewelry designer Wendy Brandes, who adores such lovely mullets as this one.

While wandering around the buffet — where hors d’oeuvres and drinks could be had together — I came upon Jeff Ruby Sales & Marketing Manager John Wilson in his fabulous orange blazer along with two women wearing geometric print and minimalist white dresses. I knew I had to have this shot of colour right then and there.

One of the few living statues scattered throughout the ballroom, a bit of kinetic performance art as guests entered and mingled with one another.

Yours truly in a dress I wore to last year’s Best Dressed. I had planned to wear something completely different, but diverted finances kept me from such things. This was also the first year I wore high heels, borrowing them from my friend Laura (whom I interviewed a while back for her “Outside the Box” profile). Why haven’t I worn them before? My feet aren’t normal in any sense of the word: I have three toes on my left foot, four on my right, bones missing in both feet, and my right leg is a quarter-inch longer than my left. And if I had the means, I would replace both with something similar to the Adidas Symbiosis.

The short hair caught my attention here; thus the photo.

This gentleman — whose identity escapes me — is well-known from what I understand, so I had to shoot his fabulous plaid blazer.

When it was showtime, I had to put the big camera away. I did my best to live tweet the occasion using the hashtag #VTBestDressed, though others used #BD2012. The drink to the left my BlackBerry was a specialty drink made with Heaven Hill products, though the name escapes me. I had tried to order a Raritini — a drink named in honour of Rarity, my blog’s mascot — but the ingredients weren’t available. Of course, that didn’t stop me from having five or six of these, plus a white wine from Carnivor Cabernet.

Here is Miranda of The Chic Sheet snapping a photo of a fashionable person after the show drew to a close, looking fashionable herself in her black dress and silver gauntlet. Alas, I missed out on meeting Danielle of Lou What Wear and Voice-Tribune publisher Tracy Blue; I was a few inches away from the latter at one point, but did not know who she was until I heard someone call out her name. However, I did meet up with friend and editor Angie Fenton — who is always a doll — former V-T intern Betsey Schneider with her sister Virginia — both adorable — other staff members of the paper, and photographer Dara Michelle, whom I met on Twitter just days ago; expect a collaboration between us very soon if all works out.

And with that, Best Dressed comes to a close for another year.

As for photos of the show itself, come back Thursday. All the best.

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Photo credits: Cameron Miquelon

Tagged as: Angie Fenton, Best Dressed, Betsey Schneider, charities, Churchill Downs, Danielle Davis, Dara Michelle, Darla Hartlage, Fashion, fashion shows, geometric prints, John Wilson, Kentucky, little black dresses, Lou What Wear, Louisville, minimalism, Miranda Rogers McDonald, mullet dresses, orange blazers, plaid blazers, The Chic Sheet, The Voice-Tribune, West End School