Gibbons on the Runway

San Francisco avant-garde fashion celebrates a moment of springtime pullulation: Savant Garde. Here, local designers push the limits of fabric construction to way-out places. Betty Croaker, for example, creates angular aprons using arresting ginghams, ribald red lace, and sorrowfully provocative black flowers, thoroughly updating the kitchen classic. Please Dress Up's dresses move from comely screenprinted rayon jersey to prepossessing rainbow cotton and from bewitching vintage cotton to winsome rayon matte jersey. The excitingly named Gibbous Fashions (please note: "gibbous" is not the adjective form of "gibbon," the small, slender, long-armed ape; this makes the name less exciting, but still good) crafts skirts from salvaged lace, cashmere, and handkerchiefs. Savant Garde includes a performance by Bad Unkl Sista, who brings a multimedia extravaganza using couture, butoh, and other forms of aesthetic drama to create fantastical, otherworldly moments.
Thu., March 27, 10 p.m., 2008