Hopefully customers is the answer to that headline, and it did work to an extent. Los Cristianos business association and Arona council pulled out the stops with a beach front fashion show at the old beach. At the mention of young ladies strutting their stuff I was down the hill and in place quicker than Ussain Bolt on roller skates. There were four shows, 6.30 pm and 8.30 pm on Friday and Saturday featuring clothes and accessories available from shops in the surrounding area.
The Los Cristianos Zona Abierto campaign was greeted enthusiastically by local business’s and just past the church plaza Perfumeria Mego had set up a makeover area outside their shop and were preening passers by. The smell of all that combined fragrances made quite a heady mix adding to the hot evenings balmy beauty. I wore a few dabs of my latest fragrance Midnight In Grimsby , well the local cats seemed to like it. Further down at the front there was a childrens play area with toys and games to keep the toddlers amused and one of the restaurants had a face painter on hand to add an extra gleam to smiling young faces.
In front of the large catwalk quite a crowd had gathered taking up the seating and spilling out all around ready for the show. A large video screen and pumping music set the tome and a female compere tottering on very high heels built up the excitement levels. In the backstage are, just behind the Plaza de Pescadora nervous youngsters limbered up before hitting the stage via the orange carpet. Many of the early, younger models were a bit shy but most showed a real flair for modelling. Nearly all of the models were of school age and had friends in the audience cheering them on and in some cases dishing out some good natured banter. As well as the majority of female models there were a few young men, now if you were a young teenage boy and your mate was up on the catwalk, you wouldn’t give him any stick would you? – no not much you wouldn’t. Big respect to the models for running the guantlet of their teasing school mates, and the dance troupe ended the show with a stylish performance.
It was a great show, a lot of work had clearly gone into it and hopefully the clothes shops will benefit from improved sales. The nearby restaurants were a bit busier than usual, but this was the early show and possibly a bit early for many families to eat, hopefully the later performance reaped even greater rewards. It was a shame to see the illegal street vendors cashing in, I’ve never seen so many tacky sqeaky flashing toys on offer, it must annoy the shop owners who are shelling out high rents and rates. Anyway look out for more events on the promenade and try to give them your support.