SFSU’s RUNWAY 2011: Enchantment
Hello all,
Last Thursday I attended San Francisco State University’s end of year fashion show, Enchantment. It was held at the beautiful San Francisco Design Center. It was packed. All the seats were full and standing room around the seats was scarce. People were even going to the upper floors of the Design Center and watching the show over the railing.
San Francisco Design Center
The evening began with an opening performance , “La Torera”, which was choreographed by SFSU Dance Major Lisa Veronica Osorio. What better way to start the evening than with what I can call nothing else but Modern Flamenco.
LA TORERA
After the dancing ended, Dr. Connie Ulasewicz, Associate Professor and Fashion Network Advisor to the SFSU students, said her official welcome. There was also a raffle that included prizes ranging from Oakland A’s tickets to a cocktail dress by local designer Christopher Collins, which retails at$800. More with me and Mr. Collins later. She also announced that all the proceeds for the night’s event would be going to Visions of La Moda, a free program for urban youth to explore the fashion industry.
Learn more about Visions of La Moda: http://www.visionsoflamoda.org/
The actual fashion show began with a handful of individual looks created by SFSU students and a couple of Vision of La Moda students. The inspiration for these looks came from nature, architecture and the body. With this inspiration I saw a good amount of structure contrasted by other more draped and flowy pieces. As the first section continued I couldn’t ignore the lack of professional models. I understand that models are expensive. Yet the lack of experience that the models showed was very, very apparent. The other down side of not having professional models is that all the girls body types were not the “typical model size” which led to much of the clothing looking ill-fitting. But again, I understand how much models cost.
The collections began and I saw a lot of simple, short, separates and dresses. Everything started to look a little repetitive until Bethany Perry gave us a breath of fresh air with Breeze. Bethany designed a resort collection with “bold prints, bright colors” and kids! The collection included both women’s and children’s practical and fun garments. It got me excited for summer!
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I began to feel that things were going to continue to be alright when Nicole Thompson’s Ship to Shore hit the stage. Classic, fun and comfortable with a nautical inspiration. I loved the wide leg jumpsuits and the nautical stripe. But her inclusion of rope details sealed the deal for me. I especially loved the garments that had rope straps on the back. It felt very J.Crew.
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The next collection that caught my eye was by Jack Lim called Terracotta. The program said he was “inspired by Chinese Terracotta Soldiers of the Qin Dynasty”. There was a strong military presence in the garments. Lots of structure contrasted with drape and a future twist. There was a high-end active wear feel. This has to be one of my favorite collections of the night because of all the contrasting aspects that were pulled together.
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The high continued with the next collection. Revofev by Cecilia Coles was very now. I could see all of these pieces being worn by girls I know. I love the mixing of pleating, volume and structure.
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A few more collections past and then a small yet amazing collection came into the spotlight and sent my textile designer heart racing. Mare by Jessica Bovert was beautiful. Her inspiration came from the texture and colors of coral, which I think came through successfully. Pleating in different scales created an awesome soft structure the garments. The final piece of the collection is covered in what looks like the beginning stages of a coral reef. It looked like she used “Shibori” to create the texture of the coral reef. I loved it.
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A collection I got super excited about was the work of Li Ma. The program described her collection as “Minimalistic, modern, unisex clothing for women”. Now that’s something I would wear! I loved it! I’d wear every single piece. The giant hoods, the exaggerated turtle neck, the curved lines and just enough volume to create awesome, tough, women’s street wear.
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By this point I realized something was wrong. I was cross checking the name of the collection and student that were on the projection screen with the descriptions listed in the evening’s program. Nothing was matching up. There had already been an announcement at the beginning of the evening that the names in the programs were not in order and to pay attention to the projection screen. But the names and descriptions of the collections were not matching up with what was coming down the runway. Things got noticeably sloppy when models were jumping the gun and walking on stage before it was their turn. The DJ was also having issues. He was trying to recover by scratching the records in order to change to the correct track. Unfortunately this mess up was not easy to hide.
More collections came rolling through and my interest was piqued again once Andi Wells’ Deception came down the runway. It was very apparent that this was a historically inspired collection with a bit of a “rock n’ roll edge”. It started out with this awesome birdcage dress. But before I knew it the model had ripped off the skirt portion of the birdcage and we were left with a totally different look! All of the looks had a transformative feature. Hence the name Deception. Nothing was what you expected. It was so much fun!
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This was an awesome and fun way to round out the show. I do have to say that there were many more collections that showed but I felt these were the ones that needed to be highlighted. The night was fun and after the show was over and I had a chance to talk to some of the designers. But that has to wait. This post turned into something way bigger than I expected. So check back soon for my interviews with Nicole Thomson, Jack Lim and Andi Wells. I also had a chat with Christopher Collins from last season of Project Runway!
Now to catch up on some homework…. 
P.S. Thanks to my partner in crime, my photographer/fiance/furniture design student at AAU, Alex Ginestra. He’s excited to document more events for HOV.
