Articles on Alicia Zeigler

Columbia Style Week 2013: Preparing for a new season of fashion and fun
By Shani Gilchrist

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Columbia Style Week debuted on June 5, 2012 after the town had been buzzing about it for several weeks. As it happens with most inaugural events, there were ups and downs, last-minute readjustments and vitally important lessons to be realized. This year, the Capital City welcomes the second annual Columbia Style Week as it returns with many changes but the same hope and excitement that surrounded the opening year.

Event organizer Alicia Zeigler started Columbia Style Week with the hopes of getting Columbia excited about fashion. She realized that many people around the city believed they had to travel out of town to experience the flash, pomp and excitement of fashion events like Charleston Fashion Week, Atlanta International Fashion Week or Miami Fashion Week. Alicia had experience with modeling and acting as a child in the Bronx, and as an adult, she became involved with the management of models, talent and events in Columbia through FFS Model and Talent Agency. She soon saw a void that she knew she could fill and, after a bit of soul-searching, gathered a team and began working on bringing the sense of excitement that comes with large-scale fashion events to the area she considers home. 

Columbia Style Week was successful at securing sponsorships in 2012, including Columbia Metropolitan, especially considering that it was a brand new idea. The event even received a proclamation from Mayor Steve Benjamin that gave it a special air of legitimacy. After that, local businesses such as Audi of Columbia, The Marriot Hotel and 104.7 WNOK quickly came on board, and all were looking forward to creating a new kind of buzz to spread around town.

For many of the businesses involved with Columbia Style Week, the event was an opportunity to reach new audiences, as attendees often came from the farther reaches of the city and the suburbs. Ticketholders were treated to industry panel discussions, retail store presentations and parties, as well as a show by Luis Machicao, the Peruvian-born, Charlotte-based designer who had recently made a splash at Couture Fashion Week in New York. Throughout the week, smaller events built toward the finale, which for Alicia was the jewel in the crown of the whole week. “The finale night was the best part for me,” she says. “Seeing it all come together and having survived it all just really made me say ‘Wow, look what we did.’”

As with any first-time event, there were lessons to be learned. “One important lesson I learned was to check everyone out and make sure they are who they say they are and capable of doing everything they’re promising,” says Alicia. “Whenever you’re putting together a large event and people realize the potential that it has, they see it as an opportunity to get involved and some don’t always have the best intentions. So, checking up on references is very important, as well as making sure that you have enough people on hand to do everything that needs to be done. With last year being the event’s first year, we learned a lot about what to do, what not to do and the details that come up that you don’t know about until you’ve been through the process yourself.”

As a result, there have been some adjustments in the outlook and approach to 2013 Columbia Style Week. To start, event organizers are making plans to move the crux of the event to a new venue. While the Tuesday and Wednesday portions of Columbia Style Week will remain downtown with the help of the Sheraton Columbia Hotel, most of the shows and parties will be moving to Forest Acres. 

“This year we will be moving the event to Richland Mall, a 50,000 square foot facility, where we’ll be doing events on the rooftop as well as at the site of the former Parisian department store,” says Alicia. 

Richland Mall has undergone many changes in recent years. While mall administrators search for businesses to fill the space that once occupied Parisian, they have come up with creative ways to keep the space active. “Given the economic environment we’ve been in for the past few years, we knew that the chance of landing another big-box national retailer was slim,” says Richland Mall general manager Joe Walker. So, on a temporary basis, the mall has started renting the department store space out for events. “It’s a great large, open space with lots of natural light from a core atrium, and it lends itself well to imaginative decorating,” he says. 

Alicia sees the move to a different part of the city as one that fills a need for people who don’t always have easy access to the downtown corridors. As she and her team looked around for a way to meet the needs of the second year, they noticed that most of Columbia’s large-scale events are concentrated in only a few areas of the city. “I appreciate what the Mayor and the City of Columbia are doing with Main Street. They’re doing a wonderful job, and I have been excited to be a part of it in the several small ways that I’ve been able to contribute,” she says. “But on the flip side, I think that sometimes we get so focused on Five Points, the Vista, Main Street and Gervais Street in Columbia that we forget that there’s a whole entire city that sometimes is not being included in the best of the best things that are happening.” .... TO READ MORE....DOWNLOAD THE ARTICLE BELOW
Columbia Style Week The Capital city's first five-day fashion event
By Shani Gilchrist for Columbia Metropolitan Magazine June 2012

June’s bright evenings will bring an extra tinge of excitement to Columbia as locals will have the opportunity this year to participate in a brand new downtown experience...

Alicia Zeigler, the power behind the establishment of this first-time event, is hoping that the energy that stems from the panel discussion and kickoff party will spill out into Main Street and get guests excited about fashion events in Columbia. “People think that they have to go outside of Columbia to see events like this,” she says from her desk at FFS Model and Talent Agency, “but we can have it all right here.”

Alicia’s interest in fashion began when she was a child in Bronx, N.Y., where her mother took her for modeling auditions, and she was able to land a few national gigs for brands like Mrs. Butterworth’s and Teddy Ruxpin. After moving to Columbia with Alerick, her husband, she started working in event planning, helming such events as A Glam Affair, a local fashion show whose proceeds went to Sistercare. Alicia soon found herself helping the show’s models find other gigs during her spare time, so she opened FFS Model and Talent Agency. Between that and her work as editor of Wink Magazine, a digital fashion and lifestyle publication for women, Alicia was elbow-deep in Columbia’s fashion scene. She would often joke with others that if Columbia didn’t have its own fashion week within a couple of years, she would present one herself. Two years went by and, although The University of South Carolina’s student-run Fashion Board puts one on to hone pre-professional skills, Columbia had not yet formed a professional or industry style week. Alicia found herself having to make good on her good-natured threats.

“Columbia’s fashion community has been growing so rapidly, and there are so many creative entities here,” she says. “I was seriously expecting that someone would have done it.” Realizing that the idea would benefit everyone in the city who does anything with fashion, Alicia began securing partnerships and involving city officials. After setting her plan out on paper, she went to Mayor Steve Benjamin’s office seeking a proclamation of a city-sanctioned style week. Based on what they saw, the office was willing to give the plan its stamp of approval.

“Our vision is to make this the most talented, educated and entrepreneurial city in America,” says Mayor Benjamin. “Events like this help us make that vision a reality.”

“I really want this to be an event that breeds creativity and encourages people to stay in Columbia,” Alicia says. She also sees her plan as one that will boost economic development for the fashion community. Since the majority of designers and retailers exhibiting at Columbia Style Week are from outside of the area, her plan is to show off Columbia’s vibrant social and retail community. “These people are going to have to book hotels here and eat here, and we want them to have a good time,” she says....

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