The Chocolate Show, Designers, Diet-Busters, and More!

On Friday evening, November 7th, celebrity fashion designers, including several former Project Runway Fashion Designers, joined with Celebrity Pastry Chefs from top restaurants, to create a "Chocolate Super-Hero" runway show at the 2008 Chocolate Fashion Show. The charity event at Pier 94 in Manhattan also offered a preview of the Chocolate show, and Tastings (another gourmet food show) To Help Raise Funds For The Greater New York City Affiliate of Susan G. Komen For The Cure. The Advice Sisters blogged about Breast Cancer Awareness Month throughout October--it's a very worthy cause!

One of the talented, celebrity designers chosen to create special looks for the runway show included my friend, Esther Nash. Check out her Web Site http://www.esthernash.com/ which has her bio, photos, and an easy-to access outline of the fields in which she has gained well-deserved recognition. Esther (in the black dress--another of her own, fabulous creations) is posing with her model, "Sedusa" (takeoff of the classic mythological figure, "Medusa". Her blonde model was gilded with gold glitter, and wore a form fitting, pink, leopard-print dress with chain straps, but the headdress and the "snakes" on the bodice are all gold-gilded genuine chocolate!

Sedusa's outfit included tall, gold, gladiator sandals festooned with long gold snakes that were also *you guessed it) pure chocolate. If you are wondering how all that chocolate was kept from melting, view the video below in which I got Esther to share the designer's "secret" about how they kept all that chocolate from melting right off the model's bodies.

You might not be able to tell from the photo, but Esther's glamorous and glittery makeup (and Sedusa's) was created by International Makeup Artist Jerry Lopez. Lopez has worked extensively with fashion photographers, celebrities and models. His clients have included Donna Karan, Catherine Malandrino and Rosie Perez.

I attended this show with TV personality and interviewer, Cognac Wellerlane, who graciously allowed me to participate in her video interview with Esther Nash *video, below. Cognac's the pro at interviewing, but I had fun posing some questions to Esther. In this photo she is doing a backstage interview with "Barbarella" (the dress was covered with chocolate "pailettes.") For more celebrity interviews visit Cognac's web site Cognacscorner.tv

Video: Cognac Wellerlane, Alison Blackman, and Fashion Designer Esther Nash Backstage at the Chocolate Show with Video by Mauro Botero

Judge Shelly Nash, was also at the show to support her sister, as was their mother, Dorothy Nash. Dorothy was busy checking out the myriad of chocolate. I couldn't find her when I was taking backstage photos, but there was a lot of chocolate to sample.

This is just one of the many tempting displays of chocolate that guests could sample. Tastings, a gourmet showcase, was also part of the opening night and would be offering the public special events, cocktails, gourmet treats, and holiday cuisine to sample. The public show would begin the next day, with tickets at $28.00 for adults.

While many simply walked around, sampling the chocolate, CBS News Anchor Chris Wragge got the fashion show festivities underway. He introduced the models, and acknowledged a number of key players for the chocolate show, including founders and producers (and CEOs of Event International) Sylvie Douce & François Jeantet. According to the press literature, about a decade ago, Sulvie and François decided it would be a great idea to create a show just about chocolate for the public. conceived They first created le Salon du Chocolat in Paris, which captured the hearts (not to mention the stomachs) of more than 40,000 visitors. In 1998, the first Chocolate Show was held on Thanksgiving weekend at the Puck Building in New York (the demand keeps expanding and so do the venues). This year the show moved to the Passenger Ship Piers on the West Side to accommodate larger crowds and more displays.

For this fashion show, each model's outfit was designed to mirror a popular superhero..but at least 40% of the costume had to be genuine chocolate. There were several celebrity former "Project Runway" contestants who designed costumes for the show, but Esther's creation, "Sedusa" walked down the runway to the most admiring glances. After all the models had a chance to talk their turn on the runway, the pastry chef and designer got a chance to talk their bows with their models. Esther Nash is walking with Lauri Ditunno, Owner of Cake Alchemy. You can see that the white runway is littered with bits of chocolate that has fallen off the various model's clothing!

A triumphant Esther Nash waves to the crowd

I watched backstage as David Barton was sprayed with liquid chocolate to give him that golden "tan." His dumbells say "David Barton Gym" and some of them actually fell off him during his walk won the runway. Still, with all that chocolate coating on him, he smelled delicious!

This model's hat and bustier are all molded chocolate. She walked very carefully. Xena "Warrior Princess" ore a dress and crown all of chocolate











...wonder woman's airplane hat and all of the decorations on her clothing were white chocolate







Feeling hungry? There's always next years show! For more information on the chocolate show www.chocolateshow.com