More than 150 students and faculty gathered at the University of Michigan Museum of Art on Thursday evening to attend “The Art of Fashion,” a bicentennial birthday bash event, which featured an exposition displaying fashion throughout recent decades, with a focus on vintage clothing.
This event was co-hosted by campus organizations MUSIC Matters, EnspiRED, NOiR Runway Fashion, Bronze Elegance and SHEI Magazine. This is the third annual SpringFest fashion show and the first collective event between these prominent fashion organizations on campus.
Ross sophomore Ayla Ahmed, a co-organizer of the event and SpingFest senior producer, introduced the exhibition and spoke about the origins of the show.
“It was originally devised by MUSIC Matters as a means to unite the fashion community on campus,” she said.
The show featured twenty models half from Bronze Elegance and half from NOiR Runway Fashion. Each of the four themes featured five models. The first part of the show launched into an upbeat Renaissance-inspired theme.
Following, an Asian-fusion theme was introduced. This theme inspired by Asian-inspired tradition.
The third theme was represented by exclusively male models, displaying themes of the present, taking on a more modern and simplistic approach.
Concluding the exhibition was the finale, “Visions of the Future.”
Aaron Pelo, editor-in-chief of SHEI Magazine, expressed his enthusiasm for working collaboratively with the UMMA and the other fashion organizations.
“The other fashion organizations are the best of the best,” he said. “It’s absolutely inspiring to be in their company because they all run such good shows. Working with the UMMA was such a real pleasure for me, and I think for everybody, just because they’re such visionaries here. I think the final show was really a knockout.”
Ahmed was also impressed by the final product.
“The SpringFest fashion show in the past has always been held in the Diag,” she said. “But this year UMMA approached us about partnering with them, and I think this has been immensely successful, having it in this artistic space, and being able to have the clothes influenced by the artwork around us.”
LSA junior Yiwen Lin said this was her second year attending the fashion show, and she was impressed by the change in scenery.
“In the museum, we have a different context,” she said. “It’s really cool. It works very well.”