Pittsburgh Wine-Vin Fatales - Heels-A-Poppin’

Palate Partners and Dreadnought Wines in the Strip District, well know for their wine tastings, wine expertise and unique shop full of wine accessories, formed a women-only wine tasting and networking group called Vin Fatales. In response to many years of requests for donations to limitless not-for-profit causes, Palate Partners created Vin Fatales to both give women a fun and focused opportunity to gather and network, as well as to focus their fundraising efforts into one main organization: Dress for Success Pittsburgh. They still provide goods to a handful of other not-for-profits, but Dress For Success is their main beneficiary.

The mission of Dress for Success is to promote the economic independence of disadvantaged women by providing professional attire, a network of support and the career development tools to help women thrive in work and in life.

Founded in New York City in 1997, Dress for Success is an international not-for-profit organization offering services designed to help clients find a job and remain employed. Each Dress for Success client receives one suit when she has a job interview and can return for a second suit or separates when she finds work.

While they may be best known for providing suits to women, it is their employment retention programs that are the cornerstone of the organization. Soon after Dress for Success was founded, they came to recognize that finding a job is only one step in a woman’s journey towards economic independence; remaining employed and building a rewarding career are equally important.

To meet the need for services that would help women both find and keep jobs, they established the Professional Women's Group (PWG) program, which provides ongoing support to enable women to successfully transition into the workforce, build thriving careers and prosper in the mainstream workplace. Once a woman joins PWG she is a member for life, able to attend meetings at any affiliate throughout the world and can benefit from additional employment retention and mentoring programs.

Vin Fatales is a membership group, with about 50 local businesswomen, ranging in position from President to file clerk, who gather at events created to enjoy tastes of special wines, to network and to partake in new experiences. Their upcoming event combines sipping boutique wines with an evening devoted to health and wellness.

Pavement, the host of this evening’s gathering, is a boutique located in Pittsburgh's hip Lawrenceville neighborhood. Pavement strives to carry unique well-crafted shoes, apparel and artist-made accessories. Most known for their amazing selection of footwear, Pavement carries hard-to-find brands such as Irregular Choice, John Fluevog, Faryl Robin, Cydwoq, and Jeffrey Campbell to name just a few. Vins will sip on fine wines while enjoying their own private shoe party.

Pavement will donate 10% of sales to Dress For Success Pittsburgh, as well as a donation of shoes to assist the ‘Dress’ For Success mission, and the Vin Fatales admission proceeds will also help toward the goal.

On September 9th, 2008, from 6:00 to 8:00 PM, Vin Fatales join Pavement at 3629 Butler Street in Lawrenceville, to discover cool shoes, savor a variety of Dreadnought Wines, and to raise funds for Dress For Success. All proceeds from the Vin Fatales events go directly to DFS. Vin Fatales get into the event for $10, and the general public for $15. Sorry fellas, these events are for women-only.

For more information on becoming a Vin Fatale, Dress For Success, Pavement, to make reservations for ‘Heels-A-Poppin’ (required), or to learn about more wine tasting events, contact Palate Partners by calling (412) 391-8502, or visit their website at www.palatepartners.com.