After 2011’s unbridled success, Lexus Nashville Fashion Week is returning for its second year!

Bigger and certainly more stylish than ever, emerging designers and legendary collections including Versace will soon be seen on the red carpet and the runway very soon. And Nashville’s fashionistas are holding their breaths in anticipation.

Already referred to fondly as NFW, the event was founded last year to promote Nashville as a fashion capital, in addition to its worldwide reputation as a music metropolis. Country music is all well and good, and we all love our honky-tonkin’ town madly, but we also need to showcase Nashville’s growing fashion scene. Last year, Project Runway Season 4 winner Christian Siriano travelled all the way from New York City to Music City to be the headline designer, proving that Nashville has more to offer than banjos and blondes. (FYI: Gus Meyer represents
Christian Siriano in Nashville!)

This year, show-goers will once again experience an impressive array of designers, with the Versace Collection being presented by Nashville’s high-end clothier Levy’s. This selection of  both men’s and women’s looks will show on Friday, March 23 at Nashville’s Historic Parthenon in Centennial Park. The week’s final event, at the Pinnacle at Symphony Place, will feature the awesome fashions of Jamie and the Jones, Sylvia Heisel, and the multi-talented Randi Rahm, showing her Fall/Winter 2012 collection. Rahm’s glamorous hand-beaded gowns have been featured in magazines and worn by A-list celebrities including Carrie Underwood, Beyonce, Julianne Hough and Halle Berry. Other designers chosen to participate include Catherine Fulmer, Traver Rains and Eva Franco.

Another Project Runway favorite, the show’s beloved fashion mentor Tim Gunn, is also confirmed to be in attendance. It won’t be Gunn’s first visit to Nashville, since last year he made an appearance at a fashion show at The Mall at Green Hills where he chatted backstage with models and provided live commentary as they walked the runway, reminding everyone to “make it work!” He was even caught rocking a black cowboy hat in photo-ops.

Nashville Fashion Week is co-founded and directed by an innovative group of style-lovers including Connie Richardson, Cindy Wall, Marcia Masulla, Mike Smith, Robert Campbell and Scott McClure, who make up the event's executive committee. This group, along with a 20+ person steering committee, works collaboratively to get the show on the runway. This year’s major sponsors include Lexus, of course, The Mall at Green Hills and Hutton Hotel.

All Access passes for the week are $350 and individual tickets are $75. Proceeds from the event will benefit the Nashville Fashion Forward Fund, to be administered by The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee. Revenues from this fund will be awarded annually to advance the career of one talented local designer with demonstrated experience in a fashion-related field.

Lexus Nashville Fashion week happens March 20-24, 2012 with weekday shows starting at 7:30, and Friday and Saturday at 8. For more information about this exciting event, and tickets available for purchase check out the website at www.nashvillefashionweek.com