Cal Poly FITS x SFC hosts third annual fashion show – Mustang News

Surrounded by airy balloons and a spiral runway, Cal Poly’s Fashion, Innovating, Trendsetting and Styling (FITS) club and Sustainable Fashion Club (SFC) hosted their third annual fashion show on May 18.

The sold-out event featured the work of 25 designers displayed on 69 models. Each collection was accompanied by a unique soundtrack to create a multisensory experience. 

The 2024 theme for the fashion show was ‘Symbiosis,’ picked by directors Komo Assi and Rachel Leong, who are also the co-presidents of FITS.

 “The theme of symbiosis could include mutualism, parasitism, and commensalism, but is also subject to interpretations surrounding nature, technology, and art,” Assi said.

A look into the collections

Each designer brought new meaning to symbiosis and what it means to them.

Student designer and architecture senior Anita Shanbhogue’s collection “Malleable Figures” featured large pieces made of copper wire and beads. One piece imitated a corset with a cage-like design. 

“My collection is about the relationship of accessories to the body, and how they can constrain but also empower an individual,” Shanbhogue said.

A few collections also featured a story with each piece having its own message. In the “Listen” collection by designers Marcella Ledesma and Phebe Cohen, there were four stories, all telling the story of Earth’s birth, destruction and rebirth.

The first piece from their collection illustrated a sea creature exploring Earth. The next two pieces tell the story of destruction from war, then the death of wildlife in an oil spill. The final piece is hopeful, showing Earth taking its power back.

Like many of the other designers participating in the show, this was Cohen and Ledesma’s first opportunity to create a larger-scale fashion design project. 

“I’d use a sewing machine… just mostly upcycling things,” Cohen said. “But we had never made something completely from scratch, like those pants [points to one of their designs] are from scratch.”

To bring the project to life, Cohen and Ledesma focused on using sustainable materials.

“We used different types of scrap fabric we found in the bins and also found fabric at the army store,” Cohen said.

Similar to “Listen,” there were other collections that also utilized sustainable and unconventional sources for materials.

Jaclyn Brodersen and Danny Puga’s collection “Polyphony” highlighted modular clothing that wasn’t constrained to being one piece, such as a shirt. Clothing can be used all over the body and they utilized secondhand clothing — only purchasing new buttons, threads and algae.

“Our collection is meant to show the versatility in clothing. When used in a different way, clothing can be given a new life,” Puga said. “Even the reverse of a shirt has a different color and texture from the outside.”

Photos by Bailee Isackson | Mustang News

The last model from the Polyphony collection made a transformation on the runway in which Brodersen and Puga rearranged the garments the model was already wearing to create a new look, illustrating how the same pieces can be reworked and re-worn. 

“Having leathers and lace combined together, softer colors and heavier colors, acrylic products that are spiky and hard are paired with softer materials and latex [creates]harmony through juxtaposition, and that ties into the name of our collection,” she said. 

Brodersen also discussed how opposing textiles were juxtaposed against each other to embody polyphony.

“Polyphony, which is multiple melodies, usually two melodies, that come together to form one more cohesive and melodic piece,” Brodersen said. 

The fashion show allows students from diverse backgrounds to come together and celebrate creative self-expression. The designers come from varying majors, including physics, soil sciences, architecture, journalism, liberal studies and mechanical engineering. 

Planning the show

To put on the event, over 100 people were involved, including the set design team of 20 students from the College of Architecture and Environmental Design (CAED).

The set included wooden pillars that supported white balloons lining the ceiling. 

“We wanted to create this creature that lives above the audience and it has this mutualistic relationship with the models below,” set design co-lead and FITS co-president Rachel Leong said.

“The original part of the concept was that it was to be breathing,” she said. “The inflatables would be inflating and deflating to create a breathing effect so that the body would be moving and animating.”

With her team of CAED students, Leong was able to conceptualize and build this huge set, playing into the multisensory experience that was this years fashion show. 

“We ended up not doing that because we liked the way it looks when it’s fully inflated with no wrinkles, [and] that was just a personal preference. But you can still hear the creature breathe with the inflated air,”  Leong said.

There was also a marketing team, planning team and a hair and makeup team enlisted to style the models.

“I think overall, we had 140 people involved with making this show happen. We had 20 CAED students, 25 planners underneath our five directors, around 15 volunteers, 69 models and 25 designers,” Assi said. 

After three years of putting on the fashion show, this is their biggest production yet.

“It started with very humble beginnings with FAST [Fashion and Storytelling], which is what FITS used to be called, and SFC and it was located in the PAC Pavillion,” Assi said. 

The FITS and SFC teams are already in the process of brainstorming themes for next year.

“Each year we go into thinking about the theme based on what would represent the designers’ desires on what they want to put forward,” Assi said.

This year’s fashion show was completely sold out.

“It wouldn’t have been possible without everyone and it wouldn’t have been as beautiful as it was without every single attendee filling in every single seat and just making it feel so alive in here.”