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Two weeks ago, the annual RISD fashion show strutted through the city. The week before that the five-day Providence Fashion Week, now in its second year, took the runway. And next week, all week, Sunday through Saturday, is the inaugural StyleWeek Providence.

“We want this to be a mini New York Fashion Week in Providence,” says Rosanna Ortiz Sinel, founder and director of StyleWeek. “We are trying to be that ambitious.”

“Fashion people are finding Providence,” says Conrad Lamour, a designer, and founder of Providence Fashion Week.

Over the course of its May run, Lamour’s event drew 1,500 people, he says, double last year’s attendance. This year, the event involved four hair stylists, 40 models and two dozen designers, who came from as far as Texas, Louisiana and Japan.

“Providence is a very unique city, with a European feel,” Lamour says. “There are venues that don’t even seem like New England.”

Sinel came to the same conclusion in selecting Providence as the site for the 14 runway shows and after parties that will comprise her event. The city has character, tourists, a culture of creativity and colleges with fashion programs, she says, and lots of interesting venues. It’s between Boston and New York, with strong connections to both.

“Everything is accessible and the food is insane,” she says.

But fashion comes first. And StyleWeek fashion, which involves 16 designers, including two from this year’s “Project Runway” show on Lifetime, has a focus.

“We want the focus to be more on the business of fashion,” Sinel says. “I didn’t want this to be a glorified cocktail party. I want buyers and press to get the V.I.P. treatment.”

Clothing buyers for boutiques and high-end stores, stylists and fashion writers are invited to attend the event. “These aren’t people in the limelight of fashion,” Sinel says. “But they are very influential when it comes to fashion design.”

The public is also invited to attend the runway shows, on a space-availability basis.

“The public are buyers, too,” Sinel says.

Initially, the plans for StyleWeek were more modest — just three days and a half a dozen designers. But word got out and designers wanted in. So Sinel began expanding the event, finally capping it at seven days and 16 designers, turning away six other designers, including another from “ProjectRunway,” its 2005 season.

For the general public, the best known designer participating in StyleWeek is Jonathan Peters, 30, who grew up in Woonsocket and is now living inProvidence. He appeared on this season’s “Project Runway” and finished sixth out of 16 designers in the reality TV competition.

Peters asked to be in StyleWeek.

“Unfortunately, there are not a lot of platforms for artists to express themselves here,” he says. “That designers in Rhode Island have a viable platform to show their work is phenomenal. It lets designers stay here and not feel like they have to go to New York or L.A. to make it in the fashion world.”

After Peters joined StyleWeek, he called his friend and fellow “Project Runway” designer Maya Luz, who’s now living in Connecticut. And she joined, too.

“From a publicity standpoint, it’s better to have two ‘Project Runway’ designers as opposed to one,” Peters says.

Peters appears to have top billing in StyleWeek. His runway show is the finale, following the show of another Providence designer, Jessica Abernethy, who grew up in Connecticut and spent high school and college in Germany. Abernethy’s designs are “focused on clean, forward and wearable apparel,” according to her StyleWeek bio.

Peters’ new collection, which he calls “Ingénue,” will involve about two dozen garments, both men’s and women’s, with a common aesthetic.

“I’ve tried to embrace the romantic aspects of my work, which is always romantic and fanciful.”

Peters says his line will emphasize detail, hand-dying, texture and soft, neutral, muted colors.

“Because women are inherently more willing to take more chances with clothing, my women’s line will come off as ready to wear. My men’s wear will seem more conceptual.

“I want men to be more forward thinking in their wardrobe and less rigid about what is male and what is female, which is not to say I’ll have men in dresses. But I will use different lines and colors.”

In addition to the runway shows, StyleWeek also offers two fashion installations. These involve models not walking through a room, but standing in it for an extended time.

“You can see the fashions longer,” Sinel says.

The installations and the runway shows are restricted to 200 people, with priority given to buyers and reviewers. However, after each installation and runway show are parties open to the public.

“The designers will be there,” Sinel says. “People will mingle with the designers, which you can’t do at the shows. That is a huge plus, and they’ll see the fashion shows on televisions.”

Fashion is design and expression, she says. But fashion can only go so far. To make a good impression, she says, personality is more important.

“A woman who walks in a room carrying a high-end handbag who has a [bad] attitude is not stylish. She is just a woman who has spent too much on a handbag.”