Eastern Michigan University’s Fashion Avenue presented the Illusion 2013 fashion show, which took four months of planning and featured 10 designers, two guest designers and 37 models. The hair stylists for the show, which took place at the McKenny Union Ballroom, were Kevin Pelham and Jason Wilson.
The event began 30 minutes late on Thursday because some of the traffic lights on Washtenaw Avenue were not working.
Fashion Avenue President Jennifer Dobransky, 23, said some models helped with makeup because there were supposed to be three makeup artists for the show, but one person was able to make it.
In addition, Madison Luckett, a social work major at EMU who was one of the models in the fashion show, said there were a few models that missed their walks because they were still waiting on hair or makeup.”
She added the models had 10-15 minutes to switch into different garments and to change their makeup, and there was one rehearsal, which was three to four hours long, two days prior to the show.
Fashion designer Erica Rodgers, 22, was studying pre-med before she realized she wanted to be a designer.
Rodgers said she created each look for the fashion show in one day, and she added that it took one month to prepare for the show.
She said it was not an easy task to find models for the fashion show.
“I selected 11 models at the first casting call,” Rodgers said. “But I had a second casting call because only three or four models from the first casting call came back.”
She said she was working on alterations from 3 p.m. until 30 minutes before the show, and the worst part was she had to wait for the rain to stop because she made two looks out of non-traditional materials and forgot to bring garbage bags.
One of the non-traditional looks Rodgers sent down the runway on Thursday was a magazine skirt, which she created from approximately 1,000 fashion magazine pages. She said this design was the easiest to fit.
The accessories for her looks were Justice for Julia bracelets, in honor of EMU student Julia Niswender who died in December of a homicide, and tribal necklaces.
Public Relations Manager Zenah Mitchel, 18, said, “It took us weeks to decide on a design for the flyer, and we posted 2,500 postcards one week before the show.”
The budget for the show was approximately $2,000, and Insomnia Cookies donated 75 cookies for the event. In addition, approximately 35 student volunteers helped with the fashion show.
For more information about Fashion Avenue, please contact fashionaveemu@yahoo.com.
