Taylor Smith models in the 2017 Runway 2 Life Fashion Show. (Photo by Ken Arutunian)
Chances are you know someone who has contended with a mental illness. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 20 percent of American adults lives with a mental illness. This prevalence is the reason Alicia’s Salon & Day Spa owner Alicia Amsler founded Runway 2 Life, a nonprofit that offers mental health resources, awareness and education.
The nonprofit will seek to raise awareness of mental health issues and of suicide prevention in a fundraiser fashion show on Oct. 12 at Main Street Station. The second annual Runway 2 Life Fashion Show offers a chance to see the current fall lines from popular shops including Lilly Pulitzer, White House Black Market and Firefly Lane Boutique. Everything seen on the runway will be available for purchase after the show. Twenty percent of sale proceeds benefit Runway 2 Life. NAMI Virginia, the state branch of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, will provide information at the event and also benefits from proceeds.
Founder Alicia Amsler and Creative Director Sunny Zhao greet the crowd at the end of the 2017 Runway 2 Life event. (Photo by Ken Arutunian)
Amsler felt a calling to promote mental health awareness following the deaths by suicide of an salon employee and of a friend. The employee had been an exemplary worker, but “I [had] let her go, because everything started changing, and I just saw, ‘Oh, she’s just a problem,’ ” Amsler says. “She came back to me three days before she committed suicide and gave me a hug and asked for forgiveness, and I had no idea, because I didn’t know what signs to look for.”
After her friend’s suicide, Amsler organized an event to raise money for her child and funeral. “The signs were there, but so many of us stay in denial, because it’s too painful and they don’t even realize when they stay in denial how many lives that they hurt,” she says.
As a salon owner, she says, she had a unique opportunity to help others. “We’re the one industry that has people sitting in our chairs for the longest time, even compared to doctors, we actually have the longest time with people,” she says.
So Amsler educated herself. She learned how to look for warning signs of a possible problem, and also researched resources available to those who may have a mental illness. “What’s better than to have service providers equipped with knowledge and resources to be able to look for trigger signs, look for comments or things that are said in our chair that reflect suicidal behavior, depression, anxiety, so that we can start that conversation with them that can help them get out of where they are?” Amsler says.
Now, all of her salon workers are trained to look for warning signs and know the steps to get their clients the help they may need or at least point them in the right direction.
Amsler hopes the event will help break the stigma that surrounds mental illness. “The [final] thing we want people to take from the show is the words, ‘Tell me more.’ When they leave the show, we want them to have conversations where they don’t have to feel like they know everything or understand everything, but just that if they think that something’s wrong with a friend or a family member or a coworker, that they just [use] the simple [phrase], ‘Tell me more.’ You’ll be surprised that sometimes being a great listener can help someone out more than they’ll ever know.”
The Runway 2 Life Fashion Show happens Oct. 12 at 7 p.m. at Richmond's Main Street Station. $45 to $150. runway2life.com
