MQ Vienna Fashion Week 2012 – Mariella Morgana. Photos & text by Glenn Belverio

The Boys in the Backroom…model left is in his street clothes, model right in Mariella Morgana

Dear Shaded Viewers,

I'm tucking into some bitterballen at Cafe de Cantine on a gloomy day in Amsterdam and trying to catch up on all my Vienna posts. My friend Irene Mayer's daughter, the lovely 23-year-old Mariella Morgana, showed her first ever collection at MQ Vienna Fashion Week. Her fall clothes (spring is not quite ready yet) was a bit goth with some heavy chains thrown in for good measure. Some pieces were made from winter fabrics that boasted hand-burned details.

Irene told me an amusing story about how the collection was being created, in her apartment in Vienna's fashionable 1st district, shared by her and her daughter. Mariella would be crouched over the parquet floor in the living room, wielding a creme brulee torch (!) to create the burned-in patterns. Irene would rush into the room with a fire extinguisher at the first smell of smoldering wool, and the pair would face-off in a Jedi-Knight-like duel between creme brulee torch and fire extinguisher.

Drag performer Ken Krueger–who is like a cross between Alice Cooper, Godzilla and Bea Arthur–closed the show with imperious earthquake stomps that knocked me out of my seat. Shows like this should have seating with seatbelts!