Fashion meets food as chef Evy Swoboda and designer Barbara Bultman collaborate for Last Hotel event – St. Louis Magazine

Dwight Carter first came up with the concept of merging St. Louis’ fashion community and the dining scene in 2014. 

“I am always trying to come up with unique ways of presenting fashion outside of just a runway concept,” he says. The big idea: getting designers and chefs to collaborate on an underground intimate dinner. “There are so many different foodie groups and blogs, and [it’s] the same thing with fashion,” Carter says of the two St. Louis communities.

After hosting three dinners in 2014, Carter focused on other events for the next couple of years. On January 30, Carter and Brainchild Events reintroduces the event with “F²: Food x Fashion,” where designer Barbara Bultman (winner of Carter’s Fashion Anarchy series) and The Last Kitchen’s executive chef Evy Swoboda will collaborate at The Last Hotel (1501 Washington). 

“The designer presents their collection to a chef. The chef takes that collection and takes their own interpretation and creativity and creates a multicourse meal out of it,” Carter says. Although what Bultman and Swoboda will present will be a surprise, Carter says Bultman described the collection as inspired by Pop art and Andy Warhol. As each course is served, models will walk wearing Bultman’s interpretations of each course. 

The menu includes four courses. The first includes beet tartare with radish and cured egg yolk; the second is roasted pumpkin, prosciutto, goat cheese; the third is shrimp, arugula pesto, and agrodolce; dessert is a lemon cake with berry cream.  In addition to the meal, attendees at the 30-person or so event will have their choice of wine, cocktails by Grey Goose, and beer by 4 Hands. 

“In the past, I’ve had chefs just take the colors of the collection and present their courses that way,” Carter says. “I had one designer whose collection was targeting a woman who was traveling, so that chef had an Asian-inspired course, an Italian-inspired course, a German-inspired course. It’s an interpretation of what the chef and designer come up with, so it’s different every single time.”

Carter hopes to make the event a series, with three or four more installments.  

“You have these food and fashion events where there’s a fashion show and there’s food, where either the fashion is in the background or you’re eating what’s in front of you and paying attention to the fashion. This [event] makes you focus on both and see how they correlate with each other.”

FYI: F2: Food x Fashion is $105 per ticket, begins at 6:30 p.m. on January 30.