An organization dedicated to doing fashion right is fAction, a collective of Bay Area women who combine style with activism.

The group’s debut fashion show, “Seam of Consciousness,” focused on violence against women, and in particular the atrocities facing women in Darfur. The idea was so successful, in fact, that the November 15 event raised more than $3,000 for the Darfur Women’s Center through door fees, patch sales, and a silent auction.

At first, the idea of connecting clothing and consciousness in this way might seem like a stretch, but the up-and-coming designers involved connected the dots, pointing out that when it comes to violence against women, even what you wear is political.

“I envision a world where women can walk safely down the street at night and we can wear whatever the fuck we want,” said designer Nikole Lent, who opened the show as a guest speaker, “because my hot outfit has nothing to do with you.”

Nikole Lent in a design by Kari Koller.

Lent also explained how the Darfur Women’s Center is trying to reduce violence against women in Sudan. One example, she said, was teaching them how to use solar cookers so they don’t have to go out for firewood – one of the primary places Sudanese women get raped.

But the involved designers didn’t stop their awareness efforts with violence in another country. Many of those in fAction developed a personal connection to violence in their own communities when Kirsten Brydum, a San Francisco activist who was instrumental in the Really Free Market movement, was murdered in New Orleans. Though Brydum was visiting New Orleans as part of her national Collective Autonomy Tour, it’s widely believed that the murder wasn’t related to her work as an activist and was, instead, a random act of violence against a woman in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“Kirsten was a dear friend of mine,” said Lent. Her death has hugely impacted the community [and] it’s important to link local violence to global violence. To draw that connection between a women in our community who was murdered and how [her death] affects people in a huge way, and the big impact that one death causes.”

Designer Kari Koller agreed. “People are not acknowledging what’s going on with [the women in Darfur], or the women in our own society,” she said.

The six designers designers, Angela Dix, Nikole Lent, Rachel Znerold, Moriah Lueders, Kari Koller and Lula Chapman, were present as models in their own runway show. And each show was its own performance art piece, with messages ranging from environmentalism to the operations of the mainstream fashion media.

From circus-themed dancing to pelvic thrusts with a bicycle, the shows were both intriguing and powerful. The finale was a performance by designer Lula Chapman who, along with models Jasmin Hoo and Roja, pasted magazine images to her body. By stepping into buckets of water, the models were able to cleanse themselves of the magazine images by the end of the performance. “It’s about shedding off these imposed ideas and feeling good in your own body,” Chapman explained later.

In fact, most of the performances questioned what it means to be a woman. Znerold said, “[There is] unspoken violence against women, emotional violence and psychological violence, and it’s perpetrated by the mainstream fashion industry. It’s really questioning what is OK and what is not OK to look like. We want to support that there is no right or wrong image of what a woman looks like.”

The bottom line, the designers agreed, is that fashion is not inherently evil, and can be used towards social activism. This idea of combining fashion with activism should not be mocked, or deemed ridiculous. Znerold said, “Fashion is in so many ways an extension of your personality. It’s a vehicle that we all have to share with the world who we are and what we are. And being in charge of how we present ourselves to the world… we’re reclaiming it; we’re taking it back. We want to be in charge of our self image,” said Znerold.

Learn about upcoming shows by getting in touch with Znerold at www.rachelznerold.com and about the Darfur Women’s Center at www.darfurpeace.org.