20th annual spring fashion show at Central

Mikaila Wilkerson, Senior Reporter

This year marks the 20th anniversary of Central Washington University’s annual spring fashion show.

Andrea Eklund, Student Fashion Association advisor, directs 120 students for the spring fashion show. This year’s show hosts about 14 student designers, which is the most the association has seen. There are also three male designers this year, with men’s wear being designed more than usual.

“It’s a lot of work,” Eklund said.

The best part about the show, Eklund said, is seeing the student’s satisfaction with their work and all that they have accomplished at the completion of the show. Eklund is very proud of all the of hard work the students put into the show.

According to Eklund, this year’s stage for the show is 48 feet long.

“It’s a real catwalk,” Eklund said.

Each of the student designers create a minimum of three pieces for the show, but can make up to five pieces, according to Eklund. There are two students who are working on lines that they started during winter quarter, and there might even be one student trying to work on six fashion pieces.

During last year’s first fashion show, the production was 38 people shy of selling out, Eklund said. But their second show sold out and they had to bring in 20 extra seats to fit everybody. For this year’s show there are about 297 seats available.

Josh Perez, a junior apparel, textiles and merchandising major, is one of the student designers for this year’s show and was a model coordinator for last year’s fashion show. Perez is currently working on three pieces, all involving flannel, which Perez is inspired by due to its versatility.

“It just shows how creative you can be with flannel,” Perez said as he described his pieces. “At the end, you just feel that all that time and effort is worth it.”

Perez hopes to one day have his own clothing line. He wants to start at a women’s wear line and move up from there.

“Hopefully it just blows up,” Perez said. “I’ve got to take leaps.”

Alissa Leach, another student designer, is a senior apparel, textiles and merchandising major, minoring in fashion design.

Leach is working on five pieces for the show, all inspired by the culture of the Maasai tribe dwelling in Kenya and Somalia, which Leach really admires.

“I really loved the textures and tones,” Leach said, describing her use of blues, browns, and black mixed together in her pieces.

For last year’s fashion show, Leach put together a line consisting of four pieces that were inspired by women of the Middle East, along with designs of mosques.

“They were really powerful and beautiful and I took inspiration from that,” Leach said.

The best part about the fashion show for Leach, personally, is being able to meet so many different people and being able to see everyone’s fashion ideas come alive on the stage.

“That whole process is really fun,” Leach said.

There will also be a silent auction before the show starts and proceeds will go towards funding the next fashion show.

Tickets for this year’s show are $10 at the door, and pre-sale started last week.

Perez said that the spring fashion show is a really great show to go to and see all the work that the student designers put into making the show happen.

“Our effort needs to be seen,” Perez said.