Campus Currents

By Dylan Pichnarcik 
Publications Intern 

When the lights dimmed in the Dwight Performing Arts Center on December 3rd, members of FSU’s Fashion Club took the stage and showed off garments created entirely of reused fabric and other atypical textiles at the annual “Reimagine Trashion” show. 

Of those students, Isabelle Dolezol, dressed in a black shirt and blue pants, best captured the audience's attention. She would go on to win the people's choice award that evening. 

Dolezol, a junior in the fashion design program, said, “I’m honored. I’m surprised!” 

She said this was the first time she participated in the Trashion show and is a new member of the FSU Community, having transferred to the University a short while ago. Dolezol said countless hours went into the design of her pants, “along with a little bit of blood” during the creation. 

She said her design was focused on sustainability and using as little material as possible and that she was inspired by computer pixels in her design. 

“Technology is kind of bleeding into life because I feel like our generation is one of the last ones where we have memories without AI and just everything being digitized.” 

Another student, Senior Christian Taylor, was named winner of the overall competition by a panel of judges, including President Nancy Niemi; Campus Sustainability Coordinator Ruirui Zhang; Fashion Professor Pamela Sebor-Cable, and Judy Fitzgerald, an executive board member of the Independent Association of Framingham State Alumni. 

Taylor said his design was inspired by the shell of an armadillo. 

President of the Fashion Club, Senior Aili Schiavoni, said this year she was inspired by Fashion Department Chair Haewon Ju to reimagine the Trashion show. 

“She had some thoughts on the Trashion show, and if there was any way we could sort of re-evaluate the way that we approach this, and I was 100% agreement with her, because, to be honest, it really doesn't sit right with you once you get to the end of the Trashion show and you're literally getting cut out of a dress, and then it's immediately going in the garbage. ” 

To combat this, the Fashion Club provided designers with materials that were donated to the Fashion department, rather than discarded materials like in previous years. 

“We're very aware of how we manage our waste in the Fashion department, [which] goes above and beyond - making sure that all of our textiles go into the proper recycling channels. But it really did feel like a shame that we were taking an entire bulk of this material and it was just going straight into the recycling. It felt like there could have been something else to do with it, and then the dots connected, and here we are,” Schiavoni said.

Additionally, a thrift-pop-up shop was held by the Fashion Club during the event; all proceeds from the pop-up shop will be funding students who are participating in a study-abroad trip to Japan and Vietnam to study fashion and manufacturing, according to Schiavoni.