Runway Second: The place Music Meets Fashion

The Symphony Fashion Show returns for its twenty first 12 months, with Marci Houff and Laura Kimbrell serving as co-chairs. Featuring designs by one of the crucial coveted vogue homes, Oscar de la Renta, and a efficiency by nation famous person Lainey Wilson, the night time guarantees to encourage and empower. According to the co-chairs, “an evening that blends a great cause, high fashion, and world-class music seems a f itting tribute to Nashville’s long-established reputation for philanthropy and commitment to art, in all its forms.” Ahead of the occasion, we spoke with Houff and Kimbrell to study extra.

Nashville Lifestyles: What does it imply to you personally to assist carry the Symphony Fashion Show’s legacy ahead?

MH & LK: We have been honored to be requested to co-chair this vital occasion. It is simple to search out motivation within the success of years previous and to work exhausting to ship a night of comparable caliber. This is the twenty first annual Symphony Fashion Show, so we’re lucky to have an extended record of unbelievable girls to study from alongside the way in which.

NL: How do you see vogue and music coming collectively in a uniquely Nashville approach at this occasion?

MH & LK: One of the world’s most prolific vogue homes and considered one of nation music’s hottest artists coming collectively within the Schermerhorn Symphony Center — what may very well be extra Nashville than that? With the clout, admiration, and great thing about Oscar de la Renta, and the expertise and power of Lainey Wilson, the night will likely be distinctive and thrilling.

NL: At its coronary heart, the Symphony Fashion Show helps the Symphony’s education schemes. Why is that mission particularly significant to you?

MH & LK: We are each music lovers and large followers of the Nashville Symphony. It’s particularly significant to chair the Symphony Fashion Show as a result of it raises funds to help the Nashville Symphony’s Accelerando program, an intensive initiative for promising younger musicians that equips them for school and past. Research exhibits childhood music education schemes provide complete advantages, together with enhanced cognitive growth, improved educational efficiency, strengthened reminiscence, and higher emotional regulation. We dwell in Music City, and it’s vital that we provide these applications to our neighborhood and nurture the younger expertise amongst us.

NL: How do your strengths complement each other in relation to main an occasion of this scale?

MH & LK: First and foremost, we’ve got a whole lot of enjoyable collectively! Once we began working collectively, we have been thrilled to find how a lot our talent units complement one another, and that we’ve got very comparable tastes. We just about agree on every thing and are united in our objective of constructing the night memorable, particular, and, most significantly, a profitable fundraiser for the Nashville Symphony.

NL: What can visitors anticipate the second they arrive on the Schermerhorn Symphony Center on April 28?

MH & LK: Guests can anticipate a vivid, colourful, welcoming surroundings upon arrival, full of stunning faces, cocktails, mocktails, and extra! Drawing inspiration from Oscar de la Renta’s Fall 2026 assortment, our good occasion planner, Bruce Pittman, helps us design a night we hope will take everybody’s breath away. But we’re not spilling any secrets and techniques simply but…

NL: What made Oscar de la Renta the proper alternative for this 12 months’s present?

MH & LK: It has been 14 years since Oscar de la Renta appeared on the Symphony Fashion Show, and we’re so excited the wait is over. It’s actually a present to see a design home of this caliber present a group in Nashville on the Schermerhorn runway. We know from previous Oscar visits, the wait will likely be price it and the present will completely usher in lots of extra years of excessive vogue at our beloved Symphony Center.

NL: How would you describe the general power and circulation of the night time?

MH & LK: The power is palpable! From the second visitors arrive on the Schermerhorn Symphony Center, there’s an amazing sense of enjoyable and anticipation. The night time brings previous buddies collectively, new friendships are made and our visitors elevate the bar every year on their modern appears. Although, nobody ought to really feel intimidated on what to put on; select one thing you’re keen on and you’ll look smashing!

Practically, the night begins with a enjoyable and energetic cocktail hour within the Schermerhorn’s stunning courtyard. Guests can get pleasure from cocktails and handed hors d’oeuvres from our phenomenal caterer, Kristen Winston, whereas mingling with buddies new and previous and admiring all the fabulous vogue on show. Guests will then head contained in the live performance corridor to get pleasure from a runway present of the Fall 2026 assortment from Oscar de la Renta, a high-energy efficiency from CMA Entertainer of the Year Lainey Wilson, and remarks from our fantastic emcee, Danielle Breezy. Following the present, our patrons get pleasure from a seated cocktail supper and common admission ticketholders return to the courtyard for some late-night bites and extra mingling.

NL: Is there a second through the night you’re most trying ahead to?

MH & LK:  That’s a tough query! We will likely be awed when the primary mannequin hits the runway, and the way might we not be equally enthralled when Lainey Wilson’s voice fills the famend house of the Schermerhorn Symphony Center?

NL: What do you hope attendees take away from the night past an attractive night time out?

MH & LK: Inspiration!  We hope the occasion will encourage each common attendees and newbies to the splendor of the Schermerhorn and the vital position that the Nashville Symphony performs in our neighborhood.