The Fashion World Celebrates Capitol’s 20th Anniversary

Celebrities, designers, journalists come to Charlotte for a weekend party

​A WHO'S WHO from the fashion and media worlds will fete Laura Vinroot Poole at a weekend-long celebration of her SouthPark boutique Capitol, which turns 20 this year.

The festivities kick off with a private farm party tonight featuring music by soul band Lee Fields & The Expressions and cocktails from Charleston’s Jack Rudy Cocktail Co. Many of the designers who created collaborations for Capitol’s anniversary collection will be in attendance, including the faces behind eponymous lines Irene Neuwirth, Lizzie Fortnuato, Rosie Assoulin, Peter Pilotto, Lela Rose, and Harley Viera-Newton.

Also on the guest list: actress January Jones, Southern Living editor in chief Sid Evans, and Vogue contributing editor André Leon Talley, who curated a special Oscar de la Renta exhibit opening this weekend at the Mint Museum.

There are plenty of Charlotte notables celebrating, too, including actress Angie Harmon, WCCB personality Ashley Anderson, SOCO Gallery owner Chandra Johnson, former WBTV host Barbara McKay, Not Just Coffee owner James Yoder, and Twine & Twig designers Jacquelyn Buckner and Elizabeth White.

The celebration continues Saturday with an afternoon party at Tabor, the men’s store Poole owns in Myers Park, and at the Mint Museum’s gala and after party that night.

Poole opened Capitol in 1998. “The thing about retail is you never have a time to celebrate,” she told me during an interview for our March cover story. “It’s a little uncomfortable for me. But it is such a hard business, I’m like, ‘No, we’re celebrating this.’”