USA, Miami, Florida. June 14, 2018

The confluence of fashion and wellness, complementary industries in striking ways, will be creatively explored during the first-ever Wellness Meets Fashion show, which will take place at the Global Wellness Summit's (GWS) gala event on October 7, 2018 in Cesena, Italy. The wellness fashion runway is a creative collaboration between BuDhaGirl, a fashion/lifestyle brand focusing on mindful glamour, Louie Schwartzberg's Moving Art, La Forma, an athleisure garment maker with wellness values at its core, and the Summit's own creative team. The GWS is the foremost gathering of international leaders in the $3.7 trillion global wellness economy.

The 12th-annual Summit will take place October 6-8 at Technogym Village and is expected to attract well over 600 delegates. The conference theme "Shaping the Business of Wellness" will focus on the ten sectors that make up today's multi-trillion wellness economy: beauty, healthy eating, wellness tourism, fitness/mind-body, preventive/personalized medicine, complementary/alternative medicine, wellness lifestyle real estate, the spa industry, the thermal/mineral springs market and workplace wellness.

"2018 started out with a bang for the partnership of wellness and fashion," said GWS Chief Creative Officer & Executive Director Nancy Davis, citing the January cover of American Vogue featuring Lupita Nyong'o performing yoga on a stand-up paddle, and the word wellness emblazoned in large print across the cover.

The new intersections between fashion and wellness were already being discussed by wellness industry leaders prior to that pivotal moment on newsstands across the globe. During Dr. Andrew Weil's impassioned keynote at the 2017 Summit, Davis noted you could practically see the light bulbs going off over delegates' heads as Weil touted fashion as one of the most powerful drivers of human behavior-encouraging the audience to "make wellness fashionable."

"Fashion holds a unique place in our culture-and has the power to motivate and inspire change. Add to that the fact that society as a whole is waking up to the idea that absolutely everything we do affects our health and wellness and the impact fashion can have on our lives starts to crystallize," said Jessica Jesse, Founder of BuDhaGirl. "At an extremely basic level that means everything we wear-and how we wear it-can affect not only our physical wellbeing but also our mental wellness."

"Our goal is to create an experience that underscores how important and integral each industry is to the other - in an inspiring, creative way that is sure to delight GWS delegates," continued Davis. "Combining Jessica Jesse's creative talents with the extraordinary imagery of Louie Schwartzberg, and then putting those designs into the hands of the team at La Forma, will create a truly unique and breathtaking visual and emotional experience for our delegates.

The Wellness Meets Fashion show will also provide an opportunity to celebrate Italy's cultural significance in both industries. Italy is one of the fashion capitals of the world and the Italian lifestyle has also been proven inherently healthy (including some of the lowest obesity rates in Europe). In addition, Italy is also an undisputed leader in art, architecture, product design, music and gastronomy and numerous Italian academic and business luminaries will be featured on the Summit's agenda, including Andrea Illy, chairman of illycaffè; Antonio Citterio, the award-winning Italian architect and designer; and Dr. Giovanni Pes, the Italian researcher who coined the term "Blue Zone" after studying the extraordinarily high life expectancy of residents on the Italian island of Sardinia.

"Fashion has the power to shift cultures and mindsets in monumental ways. Melding a wellness ethos into clothing can only serve to inspire and empower the wearer to live a more mindful life. I'm thrilled to be part of this creative collaboration," said Moving Art's Louie Schwartzberg, whose stunning nature imagery is the visual heart and soul of the Wellness Meets Fashion collection.

The ways that wellness is impacting fashion (and vice versa) will be a major topic on the 2018 GWS agenda, and high-profile keynotes will be announced in coming weeks.

The Global Wellness Summit is the world's leading conference on the business of wellness and always a sold-out event. To apply to attend, click here.

About the Global Wellness Summit: The Global Wellness Summit (GWS) is an invitation-only international gathering that brings together leaders and visionaries to positively shape the future of the $3.7 trillion global wellness economy. Held in a different location each year, Summits have taken place in the U.S., Switzerland, Turkey, Bali, India, Morocco, Mexico and Austria. The 12th-annual Summit will be held at Technogym Village, Cesena, Italy from October 6-8, 2018.