Fundraiser Saturday for Lynn’s Third Thursdays

LYNN – If about 50 stylish women in stilettos are hoofing across Central Square toward the Lynn Museum next Saturday afternoon, rest assured Lynn native Melissa O’Shea is among them.O’Shea has made a business of raising both funds and awareness for a wide array of causes by staging Walk in Style events that attract attention by featuring women en masse wearing high heels.Lynn’s Third Thursdays program, which brings entertainment and cultural events to the downtown on the third Thursday of each month, is the latest beneficiary. O’Shea is partnering with Soraya Cacici, a local RE/MAX realtor, to raise money for Third Thursdays while celebrating the city’s history as a shoe manufacturing center.The June 20 event, which begins at 4 p.m., includes a wine-and-cheese hour in the Lynn Museum courtyard at the corner of Washington and Union streets, a tour of museum exhibits related to shoes, a narrated walking tour of architecturally interesting downtown buildings and open houses at residential lofts created within former factories.The event, from 4-7 p.m., also includes a walk-off on the pink carpet, when a panel of three fashion-conscious judges decide who is wearing the best stilettos.According to Cacici, a former Revere resident and fashion-design student who now lives in the Boston Machine Lofts in Central Square, bringing dozens of women together to show off their stilettos for a cause is just plain fun.”The Best-in-Shoe walk-off is great. We’ll have three judges as the Shoe Club members walk down the pink carpet,” she said, adding that the spotlight will be on Central Square. “It’s such a great place, with new people moving in and all these great buildings, some of them former shoe factories that have been turned into cool, funky lofts.”Cacici, who jokingly ranks former Philippines First Lady Imelda Marcos among her idols because the woman’s wardrobe included 3,000 pairs of shoes, said the events typically feature plenty of high-end footwear – Manolo Blahnik, Stewart Weitzman, Jimmy Choo.As Cacici explained, the stiletto parties were started when O’Shea, who now lives in Medford, got together with female friends once a month for dinner. The women all agreed to wear stilettos and it created a stir.Recognizing the power of a well-turned ankle, O’Shea founded the Hello Stiletto Shoe Club, and is currently the organization’s president. She has since held stiletto-related events at major department stores, restaurants and other venues. “Melissa has set up shoe clubs in seven or eight states. She started with 10 members but now there are over 10,000 members in 17 states across the country,” said Cacici, who hosted a stiletto-related fund raiser for LynnArts and another to bring in the crowd for a real estate open house.Tickets to the Lynn event are $20 and available at LynnArts, 25 Exchange St. in Central Square, or by calling the gallery at 781-598-5244, or by contacting Cacici at 781-572-8725.The Lynn event includes tours of nearby residential lofts in the Boston Machine Lofts building and at 70 and 90 Exchange St., a former commercial structure converted into condominiums.”One hundred percent of the proceeds benefit Third Thursdays,” said Cacici, whose real estate industry blog can be found online at www.therealestatestiletto.com.