Grace Diviny, Staff Writer
On April 25th, Oneonta students gathered in Alumni Field House to watch the State Fashion
Society’s production on their Annual Fashion Show.
The theme for this year was “Rocco Revival,” which was inspired by the French period of
Rococo fashion during the 18th century that involved. The theme was chosen in October of last
year, and since this semester, many fashion students and designers alike have worked extra hard,
whether it was creating and constructing their designs for the show, hosting fundraisers to
support the event, or models working hard at model bootcamps and rehearsals.
The doors opened at 3:15 and started around 4:15 as SFS President and Vice President Melanie
Lowell and Ryan Horaz came out on stage to announce the premise of the show whilst
introducing and acknowledging their judges for the show alongside members of Oneonta’s
faculty, alumni, President Alberto Cardelle and their Fashion Advisor Dr. Chiweshe before
introducing the first half of the show.
For the first scene of the fashion show, the theme was Ready to Wear Garments, in which stayed
on theme for the Fashion Show’s overall theme of ‘Rocco.’ Whilst the designers’ pieces were
breathtaking, specific pieces such as Camryn Robinson’s “Momento Mori” were especially
beautiful, with her piece being specific towards their reflection on their Catholic upbringing and
the effects it’s had on their life, with their designs of crosses on their models’ clothing and color
palette of white, black, gold, and maroon that highlighted her message about power and
corruption in the Church. Another piece, “Renaissance Eclipse” by Sullivan M.B. was also a
stand-out with their masquerade take on the Rococo period, using vibrant yet dark colors on his
models’ dresses such as red, yellow, green, purple, and black that gave his designs a mysterious
but striking vibe that the crowd loved.
For intermission, Oneonta’s OK!Crew came out first with a cover performance of the song
“SHH!” by Viviz, before acapella group Pitch Slapped came out with renditions of various
songs, such as “Don’t You Forget About Me” for the crowd to enjoy as the models and designers
of the second half of the show prepared to take on the fashion runway.
Afterwards, the show’s second scene occurred, where the theme was Innovation of Wearable
Arts. This theme involved the recycling of non-traditional garments centered around sustainable
and eco-friendly clothing. One of the most stand-out pieces in this show was Leah Almy’s
Woven Western, where her pieces were inspired by growing up on her family’s farm and the
importance of it through sustainability, where the crowd was especially amazed by one of the
models’ head pieces that depicted a white horse on them. However, Lucy Beattie’s American
Requiem piece caught the audience’s attention as it was a protest piece to honor Renee Good and
Alex Pretti, the two people killed by ICE in Minneapolis this past January. The models wore
pieces representing American monuments such as the Statue of Liberty and The White House, in which the latter had the slogan “No Kings” on the back. This was a powerful piece that raised
awareness of what is happening in America that had the entire crowd cheering in agreement.
There was then another intermission that involved Lawrence Pizzi, a designer who presented his
sustainable collection with various models in the club, who adorned his styles that he promoted
through a QR code that took you to his collection online.
Lowell and Horaz then came back out to thank each other for the work they put into for the
fashion show whilst giving each other an emotional goodbye speech, as they will be graduating
this year! They also acknowledged their graduating e-board by asking them to all come out on
stage, before eventually announcing the winners for both scenes. The winners of Scene One were
Colette Papin, Arianna Morales, and Helios Martin + Dani Britton-George. Scene Two’s winners
were Leah Almy, Gianna Russo-Sanchez, and Molly Guerin. Congrats to the winners! All the
designers and models did a fantastic job alongside Melanie and Ryan for putting this show
together beautifully to where we are counting down the days until next year’s fashion show!
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