Tex in the City: Angelina Mata does New York Fashion Week

With more than a little help from friends and the online threshold pledge system Kickstarter, local fashion designer Angelina Mata presented her Spring/Summer 2012 collection as a tableau vivant at Cvult Studios in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood during New York Fashion Week. In what felt simultaneously comforting and surreal, San Antonians were everywhere...

in the Champagne-guzzling crowd (one New Yorker admitted she'd been the only non-Texan in the elevator)...

backstage (Mata's former assistant Enrique Luis Jr. helped the designer dress models)...

in hair and makeup (hairstylist Henry De La Paz and makeup artist Patrick Eichler have both made the move to the Big Apple)...

in the crew (Mata's sister Destina Mata Olivares and photographer Xelina Flores-Chasnoff were among those who made the 1,800-mile trip)...

and in the hand-crafted garments and accessories (created in collaboration with fiber artist Laura Beehler, metal artist Jose Chapa, wood artist Peter Zubiate, and jewelry designer Tracy Stephens).

To learn more about Anglina Mata, visit angelinamata.com.