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If you love making fashion, it’s time to crawl out from behind your sewing machine, because the Denver Public Library and Fabric Lab are teaming up for "Frock Out Denver: Independent Designers Challenge and Runway Show." Twelve designers will be accepted for this year’s challenge, and the winner will receive cash and gifts totaling $2,000, as well as a spread in an upcoming issue of Fabricate! -- Denver’s newest fashion rag.

Designers need to bring a portfolio and three sample pieces to their interviews, which are being held on Thursday, August 30 and Friday, August 31. (To schedule one, call 720-865-1205 or e-mail cloffel@denverlibrary.org.) If a designer is selected to participate in the runway show, he or she will be expected to show five designs — one of the designer’s choosing and four challenge pieces to be designed especially for this show. All selected designers must be willing to donate one piece to a silent auction; proceeds will benefit cultural planning at the library.

And if you love fashion but prefer wearing it to making it, circle December 6 on your calendar. That’s the date of the final runway show at the Central Library, where it will be accessorized by a reception and silent auction. Tickets are free, and will be available beginning November 5. – Aubrey Shoe

Don't forget: The final installment of the Riverfront Park Fashion Series is tonight, Thursday, August 16. It runs from 5:30 to 9 p.m. at the base of the Millennium Bridge, and tickets are $30 for general admission, $40 for a reserved catwalk seat.

The clothes are being presented by Garbarini, so you won't be seeing anything over-the-top wow, but there will be plenty of perfectly serviceable off-the-rack looks. Cat wishes that next year the organizers would add even a pre-show featuring local designers. Denver has some real talent, and they need opportunities to get their looks in front of people with cash to spend -- not just all of the towns poor hipster types. Cat understands that with fashion shows like these you need to put marquee names on the invitations in order to draw the moneyed crowd, but how about mixing it up for them a little bit once they're in the house?

See you all on the runway.

Thank you Fashionista for these amazing images from Italian Vogue. And Cat couldn't agree with you more: These are "a great example of dry, black humor, spoofing the downfall of blonde Vuittoned junkies, and yanking us back to reality with a good silent smirk."

Last week Cat trashed the new SoapNet show Fashionista Diaries. Yet she watched it again this week. What does it say about Cat that she's compelled to watch an implosion in the making. Yowza.

Before we get to the episode though, a shout out to Intern Rachel (pictured above), who called Cat a dumb bitch in the comments section. Glad to see you're reading, Rachel, and that your Ivy League education provided you with such deep and meaningful thoughts to contribute to the dialogue.

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You'll remember that Cat was all about the cowboy boots last week. Well, when she got this news, she almost had to kick someone. And still might, if she can figure out who it is she ought to be kicking. Can it really be that Santa Fe has gotten so fancy-assed and filled with trendy yuppies that the true pioneers of the area are feeling the push? Because Cat's got to say, it takes a person with real style and personality to wear cowboy boots -- or at least respect them and their heritage. And those are the types of people who Cat wants to know, not all the new Barbies that she's been seeing down there on First Friday.

From Westword's Off Limits sections:

Booted out: Santa Fe Drive is changing, from the ground up. Since it opened in 1994 as La Bota de Oro, or "the gold boot," the small shop at 840 Santa Fe now known as Importado de Mexico has specialized in Mexican cowboy boots. Husband-and-wife owners Cirilo Alejandre and Anita Arrieta-Alejandre would take regular trips to Guanajuato and bring back frog-, armadillo- and cow-skin boots. But a few years ago, they realized that their new neighbors in the Santa Fe Arts District didn't share their penchant for intricately patterned roach killers.

"They frown on them," says Arrieta-Alejandre. "They look and they point and they go, 'Oh yeah.' Like, 'That is the last thing in the world I would be wearing.'"

This disdain, coupled with heightened border security making it more difficult to transport goods, convinced the couple to quit carrying boots. Instead, they'll stock more Mexican artisan goods that are available from California warehouses: Oaxacan black clay pottery and Day of the Dead memorabilia are especially popular with their new clientele, Arrieta-Alejandre says.

And while they last, the remaining boots are 50 percent off.

The Denver Public Library and The Fabric Lab have embarked on a cool new event: Frock Out Denver. As part of the library's Fresh City Life program, they're trying to bring our local designers to greater heights of attention. How are they doing this, you ask? Well, here are the details:

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So Cat is just perptually late this week. She needs to go back to Sunday, apparently, and start all over again. Anyway, here are her picks for Cheap and Chic Monday, but on Wednesday.

Top row, left to right:
Kenneth Cole Pumpkin Pie from Piperlime
$45
Very cute with tights and skirts for fall

Born Alessandra from Shoeline
$100
Very conservative and proper, but also very comfortable. And every girl needs that pair of black pumps in her closet.

Second row, left to right:
Buttondown Flats from Anthropologie
$128
Cute with the season's new wide-leg pants.

Reptilia Booties from Anthroplogie
$98

Bottom row, left to right:
Talla Dandie Georgette Bib Blouse from Beklina
$84, was $104
Just a sweet end-of-season splurge.

Valentino Bow-Front d'Orsay from Neiman Marcus
$322, was $495. Sigh.

Claire Danes looks amazing on Vogue's weekly best-dressed list. But she's one of the few. Check out the entire fashion train wreck here.

Sorry Cat was incommunicado yesterday, but she had a good excuse: She rescued a stray pit bull off the streets of Denver and is now trying to find him a home.

Driving past her office, Cat found this dog tied up to a parking lot fence. She stopped to check it out since the location seemed odd. Not a lot around. Anyway, he had no tags or anything and looked to be abandoned. Cat asked the construction workers across the street if they knew anything about him, and they said they'd found him running Broadway earlier in the day. They tied him up in case his owner came back.

Well, a pit bull tied up in Denver is a bad, bad thing since they are illegal. Any pit bull-looking dog -- not just pit bulls -- are banned and will be killed if they come into Animal Control's posession. So, Cat figured she had to get this darling off the street. And quick.

Plus, he's not neutered, so Cat will be getting him snipped immediately. It breaks her heart to think about what his fate could be if he'd been found by the wrong people. Instead, Rufus is living with Cat while she tries to find him a good home. Good with dogs and cats. (He let my cat rub all over him and lick him on first meeting; he let my other cat attack him with out doing anything but hop back and look hurt.) No experience with children. Drop a comment if you're interested in finding out about more about Rufus.

Plus, there's nothing more fashionable than a proudly walking a rescued dog.

So Cat seems to have a shoe fetish this week. All she wants to look at or read about are shoes. Maybe it's time to buy a Lotto ticket, because the Wall Street Journal rewarded Cat's singlemindedness with an article about women and their heels.

The general gist: What shoes do you wear when you need to be bad ass?

Here are a few quotes:

The American Podiatric Medical Association, 77% of women wear heels to special occasions, which probably explains why Zappos still sells more designer heels than flats, at a substantial ratio of 65-35.

Still, feeling put-together as well as three inches taller can do wonders for the confidence -- if you can still walk. Dorothy Crenshaw donned multicolored suede Ferragamo pumps with three-inch heels to tackle an ornery automotive-company CEO who was firing her communications firm a few years back. Usually she's concerned about comfort. But that day, "I said, 'I'll be damned if I'm going to meet this man in flats or chunky heels," says Ms. Crenshaw, president of Stanton Crenshaw Communications in New York.

So what are your power pumps?

Cat doesn't want any bows or ruffles or anything flouncy on hers. Probably not even wedges. Just pure unadaulterated power in three inches. Maybe these Chanel d'Orsay pumps for fall ($510 from eluxury.com)?

Cat got sucked into watching (well, TiVoing and then watching) the Fashionista Diaries, the new reality show that premiered on SoapNet last night (August 1). The marketing and advertising for the show had been over the top -- every post on Fashionista yesterday was encased in a FD box -- and Cat admits to succumbing to the hype.

Bad, bad, bad call. This may have been worse than watching The Real World: Denver, and we all know how foul that experience was.

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This week you'll start seeing ads for Vera Wang's line of clothes for Kohl's. That means the time for her fantasy fashion is nigh: On September 9, Kohl's stores will start carrying Very Vera, which will feature everything from shoes and handbags to dresses and coats. There will even be a website devoted to teaching women everywhere how to pull a Vera Wang outfit together. Here's an advance look at the ads, which are Wizard of Oz inspired. There's something about them that is odd and mysterious and color soaked. Yippee!

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Cat was going to write about all the fall shoes she wants, but she got completely distracted by cowboy boots. Cheese Bikini had sent her the link to Old Gringo Boots a few months ago, and she just got around to kicking the dust up on the site. These are all like $500 per pair, but wow are they amazing.

The boots Cat covets:

The Monarcha (left) and Celeste (right).

The Picoso (left) and Espada (right).

The Elvis

Cat just discovered that one of her favorite boot companies, Lucchese, has a "State Boot" collection. Sadly, they only have eighteen of our territories represented, and none of the three states Cat lays claim to -- Colorado, New York and Mississippi -- are included. It's too bad that all fifty haven't been immortalized in leather and stitching, because it would be so amusing to see all the Democratic National Convention delegates strolling through Denver trying to be all Western loving in their home-state kickers.

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Cat's in the mood to shop for shoes, and right now she's obsessed with this lovely pair from Emilio Pucci. Of course, they're $648 on Zappos. Sigh.

Although, Cat would probably wear them every day, so if we consider price per wear, they're actually quite affordable... (still in Cat's dreams).