Back in May 2008 the style beat here at OnMilwaukee.com made an exciting announcement: Milwaukee was joining the ranks of New York, Chicago and L.A. by hosting its first official Fashion Week.

The three-day high fashion function was scheduled for Oct. 3-6 and promised celebrity appearances and national attention for our local designers. OnMilwaukee.com ran an interview with event organizer Hillary Fry on Sept. 23 but just over a week later, one day before go time, Fry announced that Fashion Week was canceled in full, providing only a vague explanation and citing "unfulfilled financial commitments" as the primary problem.

In mid-October WTMJ reporter Shelley Walcott aired "Why Milwaukee's Fashion Week Went Bust," an interview with former Milwaukee Fashion Week sponsor and participant, Barb Berg, owner of Boutique B'lou inside The Pfister's lobby.

Berg claimed unsecured venues and a lack of sponsor commitment caused the event's collapse. Fry says this is untrue.

Fry recently addressed the accusations and used her blog to provide clarity for a curious public. The entirety of Fry's response to Walcott's report is here.

We caught up with Fry to ask a few follow-up questions.

OnMilwaukee.com: If the information that Barb Berg provided was false, then why did Milwaukee Fashion Week go under?

Hillary Fry: I have no understanding whatsoever of her motives for going on television and lying. It was an inaugural event, and nothing ever goes perfectly, but everyone I had been dealing with has been pretty much been straight forward with me that we had all kinds of national sponsors. (Berg) has had a presence here for years and when she told me she was going to pay ... I thought she was going to pay.

On Sept. 26 she was going to have a meeting with Harley (Davidson) and she did not want me to attend; she was going to deal with it. On the 26th, I e-mailed her because clearly we had to use her money to pay for this venue, and she was arranging everything and she started talking about purchasing too many dresses or something. I said, if what you're telling me is that you don't have the money, then why don't you talk to Nancy (Davidson, wide of Harley-Davidson VP Willie G Davidson) about a comp date.

I believe what happened was, she went into this meeting knowing she didn't have the money for the pledge she was going to do, couldn't get a comp date and said, "I'm pulling out."

OMC: Was it at that moment that you knew you had to cancel the event?

HF: No. Obviously we couldn't continue the way it was planned, but we thought we could resurrect something. In my mind I thought, "Great, she's out," but I couldn't understand why she was pressuring me to cancel the entire weekend. I thought we could still do something. My god, we had celebrities, famous fashion designers and reporters coming in; sure we had to work around it. Had she given us a little bit more notice, we could have tapped other resources, but then I started getting e-mails and text messages saying the event was canceled. One thing after another kept happening.

OMC: Who was telling venues you'd already secured that it was canceled?

HF: I don't know who was making those calls. I was told the hotel (The Pfister) called the celebrities.

OMC: But you never called The Pfister and said it was off?

HF: Absolutely not. It was a huge snowball that kept growing. Agents started re-booking people and models, hotels re-booked their rooms and we were unable to move forward.

OMC: At this point, have all the tickets been refunded?

HF: No, I'm still refunding people weekly.

OMC: The big question is, is there any chance of a Milwaukee Fashion Week in the future?

HF: I would love to. I so much want to see these people get the recognition they would have gotten for their clothing during this week. There's so much talent here. Personally, I can't move forward until I make this right for everybody. That has to be addressed first. Would it be great in the future? Of course.