The Black Student Union (BSU) hosted a fashion show on Feb. 25, in the final days of Black History Month. The show was geared towards participants’ and club members’ “culture, their pride in themselves and how beautiful being black is,” as stated by BSU Secretary Chanel Taylor.
Community members were invited to come out and show off their style, creativity, music and overall good vibes, while identifying and appreciating the differences that outline who we are individually and as a collective.
The event flowed through three categories. The first, “Cultural Cloth Walk,” was where models from different ethnic backgrounds wore cultural cloth representing their community. In “Going Greek Walk,” models walked “to represent the community through Greek life, to showcase and bring attention to the organizations we have on campus,” said the night’s emcee and BSU Publicist Anirie Wilson. In “My Fashion, My Story,” the models wore outfits that came from a sense of personal comfort and that “truly represents who you are as a person,” Wilson said.
This event provided a runway for everyone’s narrative, beginning within fond memories of home, hobbies, friendships and family, stemming all the way into historical and impactful figures and aspiring future celebrities.
Wilson also shared the behind the scenes of planning the segments of the show and how the arrangement “helps everyone feel comfortable so everyone has a place in the show. Even if they’re not comfortable with walking or not comfortable with being in a public setting, this is kind of the environment where we try to help you branch out and you know, walk in a fashion show to show people who you are.”
Dinna GarciaEstrada, one of the models walking under the Cultural Cloth Walk category, seconded this statement and shared, “I want to be a model and thought this was a good first step to just dip my toe in.”
President of the Visual Art Society, Nicole Dipré, also strutted out on the runaway and shared her personal conviction of the alt. genre. “Sometimes people see black culture and these types of genres as separate but they’re really not if anything there very intricately linked. So I wanted to make that visible by having this alternative sort of punk glamor on a black person,” she stated.
As models strutted down the runway, publicist Wilson gave offered descriptions and reflections about the components that made up the outfits, emphasizing their personal impact, homage, and—most importantly—their relevance to the individual within their specific context.
In accordance with the intent of the event, crowd icon, Aldrich Archer, shared that he came out to “see black people slay” and the show didn’t disappoint! Besides the colorful outfits, the history was rich and organic.
Co President Desiree Bounds stated, “A lot of [the] parts about my history and my culture are trauma related or I think that’s how the world tries to make being black, as a part of trauma because of slavery, the civil rights movement, but we know that being black has served so much joy in it as well and black history is joy and finding that happiness and I think that’s really the basis of the event, to give us something to celebrate within ourselves and where we’ve come from.” She continued with sharing the different intersectionalities we, as a society and small community alike, overlook and simply put that the BSU Collective are intended on changing it.
In these moments we have to take the time to build up to something bigger than the noise, something more catastrophic and ratifying, our era. “Fashion trends and eras are often influenced by significant historical events such as wars or economic depressions,” says Fashion Era. Bounds went on to make a powerful statement in reference to the live performances, one that lingers as you think about the path set out today.
“We are black history in the making, that’s also a big thing we wanted to showcase with our black joy,” Bounds stated.
The performers of the night; Kensa Sol, Zay B, LI0H and J Smoog, set the tone for this precedent with authentic and iconic lyrics that moved hearts and heads between intermissions.
“Music is quick but real music lasts,” said Ramapo’s own Zay B.
bpierre@ramapo.edu
Featured photo by Brianna Pierre