Once again, Portland is hosting Blue Wrap Project Runway, perhaps the world’s only fashion show combining surgical supplies and designer gowns. Considering the correlation of doctors and designers in this town, it’s no wonder this fundraiser has taken hold here.

At this annual event, local designers use blue wrap to create elegant and/or silly dresses, hats, scarves, bags, parkas, all of it inspired by, and a dead ringer for, couturier fashions. And what is blue wrap? It’s the colored plastic material that every hospital in the world uses a ton of, primarily for sterilizing and wrapping surgical instruments.

Along comes Partners for World Health. Based in suburban Scarborough, Maine, this nonprofit takes useful medical supplies that U.S. hospitals have to discard because of government regulations, and they distribute them to organizations and people around the world. That means bandages, syringes, tape, gauze, catheter supplies, soap, alcohol swabs—and, yes, blue wrap. And it was Partners for World Health who came up with the idea of a benefit evening in which blue wrap is used to create designer clothing…all for a good cause. (Last year, the fashions also landed at the Portland Public Library for a public show. You can see photos of last year’s event here.)

The event kicks off at 6:00 pm on Thursday, April 26^th, at the University of Southern Maine’s Hannaford Hall, with proceeds benefitting Partners for World Health. So ask yourself:  how often can I attend an haute couture show where everything is made from blue wrap, and where the cost of my ticket helps to send medical supplies around the world? Odds are, the answer is “not very often.” There is a reception for supporters of Partners for World Health at 6pm followed by a video presentation and fashion show at 7:15pm. Tickets are $50 per person in advance, $60 at the door; Student Ticket $25 and $35 at the door. You can reserve tickets by calling 885-1011.

This is one of those occasions where Portland’s diverse creative talents collide in a shower of creative energy. Blue wrap + fashion show + you = An unforgettable evening.

Erin Kiley and Nathaniel Baldwin went through two years’ worth of business planning, real estate hunting, and city permitting so that dozens of other entrepreneurs won’t have to. Their enterprise, the Portland Flea-for-All, is about to open its doors in 3 stories of a gorgeously wood-beamed former mattress factory in the heart of Bayside.

The Flea-for-All is a flea market for Portland’s craftspeople, yard sale recyclers, and other creators. When it opens for business on the weekend of April 14-15, it will offer a brick-and-mortar presence for dozens of small entrepreneurs for as low as $30 a day for a 6 foot square booth. The market will also sell crafts on consignment, and wall space will be available for artists to show and sell their work outside of a gallery setting.

“We won’t be a typical junk market,” says Erin. “We’re cultivating quality sellers, and a variety of goods — we’ll have furniture, housewares, crafters…”

“The more diverse our vendors, the more people we can bring in as customers,” Nathaniel adds.

“We want it to be a market for every age, style, and budget,” says Erin.

Erin and Nathaniel moved to Portland two years ago from Santa Monica, California. They came here, they say, because they were attracted to Portland’s affordability, its potential to grow, and its entrepreneurial culture.

Finding a space large enough and inexpensive enough for their vision was a big challenge, as was the long slog through permitting and financing the new enterprise. “For a new entrepreneur, it was often hard to find the right path through the process,” says Erin. Still, after nearly two years’ worth of groundwork, “at least we know now that we’re really ready. The fun stuff lies ahead.”

The Flea-for-All finally found a home in a former mattress factory between Preble and Elm Streets in Bayside, a former industrial neighborhood that has been the target of City Hall’s economic development initiatives for the past decade. They give their landlord, Tod Dana, a lot of credit for supporting their idea and sharing their entrepreneurial enthusiasm.

The market’s front entrance is just steps away from the western terminus of the new Bayside Trail (Kiley and Baldwin want to offer special incentives to shoppers who arrive by foot or by bike) and the new-ish Trader Joe’s. Bayside Bowl is a block away in the opposite direction. A string of empty lots alongside the trail, where a railroad yard used to be, may soon start sprouting high-rise apartment buildings. And their next-door neighbor is Portland Architectural Salvage, a business that seems to share the recycled-value aesthetic that the Flea-for-All aspires to.

“There’s good growth around here, a lot of potential,” says Erin. “I think we got here at the right time.”

Portland Flea-for-All will be accepting applications from potential vendors on a rolling basis, but if you’re interested in getting in in time for the grand opening weekend in April, you should fill out their handy online application by this Friday, March 16th.

Photo: Erin Kiley and Nathaniel Baldwin, founders of Portland Flea-for-All, on the top floor of the future market space. Photo by Christian MilNeil.

When Noah DeFilippis left Maine for San Francisco at the age of 17, he sought a sense of the urbane. In his return to Portland a few years ago, DeFilippis found that cosmopolitanism nestled improbably amongst Maine’s famous Pick-and-Paws and flea markets. DeFilippis and his wife, Amy Teh, started “Pinecone + Chickadee,” a business named for Maine’s state tree and bird in a tip-of-the-cap to Vacationland. Pinecone + Chickadee reflects a modern interpretation of old-school nostalgia, and DeFilippis and Teh have allied themselves with other local artisans to breathe life into events like Portland’s Picnic Music + Arts Festival.

Pinecone + Chickadee started when DeFilippis and Teh lived in Brooklyn and attended juried craft fairs like the Brooklyn Renegade Craft Fair, silkscreening cards and clothes with their unique, colorful prints. Upon moving to Portland after the birth of their first son, they noticed that vendor admission to regional craft fairs was granted on a first-come, first-serve basis. While punctuality may be a virtue, it doesn’t always correlate with creation. So DeFilippis and Teh, along with Ron Harrity of Peapod Recordings, Diane Toepfer of Ferdinand, and Sean Wilkinson, co-founder of Might & Main, set about creating the Picnic Music + Arts Festival.

Now in its fourth year, Picnic Music + Arts Festival brings over 120 local creators (with varying records of punctuality, but proven aesthetic juices) to Lincoln Park on Saturday, August 27^th from 11 a.m. until 6 p.m.. Attendees at the free event can peruse vendors’ jewelry, clothes, vintage materials, fine art, photography and more. Bryan Buchman, curator of music blog Hilly Town, culled music from bands with both local and NYC mettle, including Butcher Boy, Weird Children, Toughcats, Sunset Hearts, Bandana Splits, The Outfits, Mouth Washington, Clouder and the always-wonderful Mango Floss. Picnic will also serve up local foods to nosh on while shopping and listening to music.

DeFilippis says that the success of previous years has culminated in the biggest picnic yet. The small town aspect of the city also helps with the process. “Portland is an easy place to organize events,” he notes. “The councilors are pretty approachable, and you can just walk into City Hall to explain what you want.”

In addition to wrangling together Picnic, DeFilippis and Teh have busied themselves opening up Pinecone + Chickadee’s storefront on 6 Free Street. The store boasts the couple’s silkscreen design line as well as vintage finds and the work of local artists, like employee Kris Johnsen. When the two saw the potential storefront, Teh was nine-months pregnant with the couple’s second child. “It was the best and worst timing,” says DeFilippis. “You know what they always say, nothing ventured, nothing gained.” With a medley of their creations and others’, and a mind towards refurbishing old treasures in new contexts, DeFilippis and Teh of Pinecone + Chickadee upend notions of Maine while gleaning it for inspiration.

Above photo: Noah DeFilippis, co-owner/designer of Pinecone + Chickadee, poses with nesting dolls from the new storefront on 6 Free Street. DeFilippis and wife Amy Teh, his creative partner, have also been collaborating with other local movers and shakers to bring Picnic Music + Art Festival to Portland.

Last night I attended the Portland Phoenix’s Best of Portland Awards at Port City Music Hall. The show began at 7:00, but when I arrived at 6:00 it was already filled with some of Portland’s most creative people. Granted there was a VIP special hour before hand, hmmm why wasn’t I invited? (hint, hint, wink, wink) Fortunately a dear friend held a seat for me, and to my delight food was being handed to me left and right from the wonderful staff of Black Tie Catering. Not to mention that as I looked to my right there was a gorgeous fondue table, which was completely swarmed by eager eaters, ooh if only I had a longer reach!

After Marie Moreshead finished her set (one of the night’s three musical performances), the award announcements began They even started with my favorite category, Arts & Entertainment! Boy, I tell you, the crowd was a super zealous one. As each nominee was announced, enthusiastic cheers made winners out of even those who did not receive an award. I was so excited that I tweeted almost every category and winner, my finger actually kind of hurts today!

The Great Lost Bear won for best burger, and when two loyal customers discovered that the owners were not in attendance they graciously accepted the award for them. “Evan Horton and I couldn’t resist the opportunity to accept the award for the Great Lost Bear. We were honored and promptly delivered it of course,” said Robert Barnes of  revDRTV. Now that’s dedication! I am so proud of the city I live in, I wish I could tweet it all!

Portlanders cultivate authenticity in everything we do. But as anyone in the fashion or accessories business knows, as soon as you create something really new, low-cost knockoffs begin showing up in the mall. Sea Bags makes one of a kind tote bags from upcycled sail cloth, “born of the sea,” as they like to say and stitched right on Custom House Wharf in Portland, Maine. They have been written up in the New Yorker and collaborated on a line of bags with Angela Adams for J. Crew. Their business has been growing at a healthy clip and they seem to have found their (sea) legs. But how to differentiate their genuine, unique article from all the imitators? This was the challenge they brought to Kemp Goldberg Partners—the other big ad agency in Portland. In a visually rich and conceptually economical way, Kemp Goldberg’s print campaign for Sea Bags located their creation story in the middle of the open ocean, most strikingly off the coast of Greenland, above. The copy merely delivers the place and the time of the image and the messages “Every Sea Bag has a story,” and, “Continue the Journey.” The campaign works because the target audience is nautically identified and feels, in the ads, the ancestral pull of the sea. Kemp Goldberg are also “developing a fully integrated campaign based on the unique brand positioning and story to include a QR code/video for the bag tag, a cause marketing campaign to reinforce and communicate the values that are central to the company, as well as other social media and interactive tactics.” Sounds like a plan. Made in Portland, marketed in Portland, sold to discerning customers everywhere.

A base camp is more than your average campground. It’s a launch pad for the expedition. It’s where trails into higher skies begin. This Thursday, in Portland, Maine, twenty emerging local artists will pitch their metaphorical tents, for one night only, at a hip new venue for this city.

Just a minute’s drive off the Peninsula’s East End, 193 Presumpscot Street is an empty beer distribution warehouse that Base Camp organizer Tessa O’Brien describes as a “giant, funky, empty box” of 20,000 square feet. Art will abound between the cement floor and the industrial ceiling fans two dozen feet above. Base Camp intends to share avant-garde work with a community accustomed to a visual arts culture moored at the fifty-ish downtown galleries and museums.

O’Brien says that she and her teammate, 23-year-old Will Sears, hatched the plot for a pop-up exhibition when they realized that Portland harbors boatloads of precocious fresh out of college artists who face steep competition from established creators when vying for the gallery walls. O’Brien and Sears, who count themselves in the young and fresh crowd, will feature their work as they spearhead this effort to wow Portland with its own underground scene.

Sears, a recent graduate of Syracuse University, works in an aesthetic of graffiti, typography, and abstract expressionism – just one sample of the range Base Camp will supply. Using muted tones and natural colors in mediums from spraypaint to charcoal powders, Sears describes his work as “a dialogue between abstract backgrounds and formal characters like letters and figures.” He moved to Portland last November because, unlike other thriving creative cities, this one has a cheap enough cost of living to allow a full studio downtown in his own house. “That’s huge being able to work all the time,” said Sears.

O’Brien is a muralist painter with an ambition “to have art be everywhere and accessible and a part of more people’s lives.” Since graduating from Skidmore a few years ago, she has painted murals regularly for major music festivals, including Bonnaroo and Phish shows. O’Brien recently collaborated with Sears and others on spraypainted signboards for the marketplace and foodstalls at this year’s Coachella. Like Sears, she originally moved here because studio space is so affordable. O’Brien admits that five years ago she would never have pursued a vision like Base Camp in Portland, Maine. “Now I have confidence in Portland’s creative community… [Base Camp] is now a legit need, and I know people will come.”

Who else will you find at Base Camp? Check out the photography of Ben Dehaan or the fashion design of AbbyAbby LLC. “You don’t see their work in the First Friday Art Walk or downtown galleries,” said O’Brien of the twenty artists who will be trailblazing the scene this Thursday, from 6:30 to 9:30. “I’m not opposed to galleries,” she continued. “They’re wonderful. But there needs to be an opportunity to experience art in a different setting.”

The warehouse openness and pioneering atmosphere will segue into an after-party surrounded by the exhibit. Food and drink will accompany danceable soul funk beats by local DJ Kyle Downs. Thankfully, Sears and O’Brien assure that Base Camp is only the beginning of quarterly pop-up shows just as bold.

Bring it on! That’s the message of a blog post yesterday by fashion designer Brook Delorme of Brook There in Portland (not incidentally, one of our “People to Watch.”). Titled simply “Competition,” Brook makes the point that as more and better designers come to Portland, the prospects will be better for all of the designers here, and particularly for the ones that that understand what they distinctively have to offer. Not only will there be even more of a design community, but that community will attract the businesses and customers that designers need to succeed: “If a city becomes known for a consumer item, such as designer clothing, it becomes a destination—seeing the streets of Portland filled with more designers (clothing or otherwise) gives the city an individuality, draws more business, more shoppers, and more suppliers.” Competition breeds innovation, of course, but Brook goes farther to say that, “The second part of competition, especially with a creative product—is that there really is no competition. Everything is different, and speaks to different people, to a different market. Coco Chanel was not a ‘better’ designer than Dior, just addressed a different need. In a creative world, there is room and need for a variety of visions, and true creativity is financially rewarded….as long as you find the market.” Roxanne Quimby seems to be thinking along similar lines to Brook in terms of the opportunity for fashion design and manufacturing in Portland with her introduction of the Quimby Colony. In an interview this summer by Peter A.Smith in the Maine Magazine, Quimby said, “I had heard that Mayor Bloomberg was interested in downsizing the Garment District in New York from 2 million square feet to 200,000, because he wanted more hotels and restaurants. So, I thought, ‘Well, we’re not that far from New York. Maybe Portland could have this center of commerce around garments.’ We used to have textile mills in Maine. We won’t do it on this big textile scale like they did, and pollute the rivers, and everything else, but just support little independent designers who are doing micro-businesses, carving out little niches for themselves.” We have already seen this with the food scene (shrewdly, the other focus of the Quimby Colony) and the prospect of the fashion scene attaining that level of density and national recognition would be good for all of Portland’s businesses, not just Brooks.

A random spin of the CreativePortland.Me roulette landed on designer Erin Flett in first position, and she’s a fine person to lead with for our new weekly profile of people who have added themselves to Portland’s new creative economy directory. Erin describes herself as a graphic/surface/textile designer and she clearly is all that and more. She plays the etsy/blog/social media axis to advantage and is on her way to becoming a lifestyle brand. Her hand-screened throw pillows make a great impulse buy on etsy and great visuals for savvy blog editors. You can buy them through her website or at Eli-Phant in Portland. They have been blogged by Real Simple,  Apartment Therapy and Decor8 among others, and she has been covered by magazines from Singapore to Boston to—of course—Portland. A real fixture in the local design scene, Erin has worked as a designer and creative director at Maine Magazine and Maine Home and Design, designed original prints on raincoat cotton for a line of tote bags for AU, and has participated in the Picnic Music and Arts Festival. I caught up with Erin yesterday and asked her about living and working in and around Portland:

Can you tell me what you like about living and working in the Portland area?

The nostalgia and creative energy that overwhelms Portland is like no other place I have discovered. I feel it’s a simple place to live and a great place to be inspired. I find so much here that makes me happy and at peace. The paths behind our house are covered in moss and leaves, the rocky coast, the smells of the ocean—the insane amount of trees and lushness. But the real thing I love are the stories of the people here. I am known to pull over and start up a conversation. While waiting for a tree to be cut down on a side road coming home from my mom’s house I sparked up a conversation with a 78 year old gem of a man that owned 100 acres around him and built his house he lives in. He told me a story about the tree that was being cut down. This is what brought me here. I love old stuff and great stories and meeting people with so much soul makes me feel apart of something real. And now that I have two little girls, I want them to feel this same sense of connectedness and passion about a place they call home.

Why and when did you move here?

Maslen and I moved here to start our life together—I moved here in my twenties looking for that perfect place to start my life after college and one day have a family. Working at a design agency at first then going solo—work here never felt like work—I loved the people, the businesses that I worked with and my clients turned into life long friends. The lifestyle for me is perfect—I would go for a run either in the woods or around the back bay, hike a trail or go to the ocean. The options are endless. Everyone gets it here—we love it here and we make it work—sometimes making sacrifices along the way, but what wins out is peace of mind that comes with living and working here.

How have things changed during that time for you?

What has changed for me in the past 10 years working here is that I have had to work smarter. I do more with less and really figure out the best most economical way to do everything. I have always really been mindful of this but I think now more then ever I am figuring out how to do things that are amazing with a not so amazing budget.

What do you see ahead for Portland and for yourself?

What I see ahead for Portland I hope is a busier OLD PORT with all these creative souls coming together. I believe all this creative energy will explode…and I really want to be a part of that. I feel as a designer and business owner/entrepreneur in Maine you have to have that spark and passion constantly driving you—because everyone is telling you how bad the times are or how slow things are everywhere. I just take it all in and appreciate living and working here and keep going.

On another note I feel a lot of people are banding together creating organizations that are helping our Maine economy and supporting local artists and business owners, like LiveWorkPortland. These organizations and non-profits are working toward making life here better for all of us. We all need to take time to help out where we can so we all can grow and prosper here.

Is Maine part of your “brand story”?

Maine inspires me. Everything from the layers of leaves and moss to the endless amount of old things that have an amazing story. I can go to yard sale and buy old books or textiles that were worn or read by the great grandparents of the families that still live there. I create patterns that speak to me, but all of it is a interpretation of my life, and right now my life is here in Maine. I have prints that have come from my days walking through miles of sunflowers or prints dreamed up from childhood memories gluing seed pods to rocks. I think what I love most about doing what I am doing here is the creative result is heartfelt and human…because that is how I feel here.

Who are the designers, artists and other people in the creative economy in Portland that you admire?

I am totally in love with a lot of artists here—but I admire people that have taken a dream and turned it into a thriving business. I feel I could name a lot of well known designers but I also admire all the unknown or undiscovered talents that do amazing work, just to do it, for the pure joy and passion of it. I think the big names that have made it here would tell you that it’s that rawness of living here and the passion that inspires them which ultimately brings success. (Or at least I hope that is true.) I hope to add my name to that list but I rather add my name to the list of people that are happy doing what they love. My nana always said, “you can do anything you set your mind to do, just love what you are doing and don’t stop believing.” Maine is a test of creative resilience and perseverance. I am thankful to be a part of it.

CreativePortland.Me, is a new visual directory of the creative economy in Portland, Maine, created by brand marketing agency Forge in collaboration with LiveWorkPortland. To add yourself, just find a cool picture and go to the super simple Profile Creator page. You could be our next profile!

Burt’s Bees founder and multi-foundation philanthropist, Roxanne Quimby, will speak at the Portland Regional Chamber’s Egg & Issues breakfast on Wednesday, December 8 from 7-9 am at the Holiday Inn By The Bay, 88 Spring St., in Portland. Quimby is possessed by two grand passions, art and nature. After she sold Burt’s Bees in 2003, she put her energy into two foundations, the Quimby Family Foundation, with a mission “to advance wilderness values and to increase access to the arts throughout Maine,” and Elliotsville Plantation, “a non-profit foundation established for the acquisition and conservation of land and the preservation of open space for the benefit of the public and for the conduct of educational and stewardship programs in furtherance of land conservation.” Quimby has now conserved approximately 120,000 acres of wild lands in Maine’s north country and has just been appointed by President Obama to sit on the board of the National Parks Foundation. Her most recent project swings the pendulum back towards the arts, specifically in Portland. Her non-profit urban artist-in-residence program, The Quimby Colony, focuses on fashion/costume/textile design and the culinary arts. The Colony is located in the former Roma Restaurant building at 769 Congress St., and has already hosted it’s first fashion/costume/textile fellows as well as numerous fashion/performance events and readings by authors on culinary subjects (in collaboration with Rabelais). In her Eggs & Issues talk, Quimby “will describe how this venture can help Portland fulfill a vision of itself as a creative, artistic community and a destination for artists and their patrons. She will also discuss the creative economy and its role in our community and the need for jobs to help the economy make a turn for the better.” Music to our ears. You can register for the event through the Chamber’s event page.