O'More College Celebrates 25 Years of Student Fashion Shows
- Haley Ramsey
- 5 hours ago
- 4 min read
O’More College of architecture and design will celebrate a landmark anniversary of its spring fashion show on April 26.
“This year is a fun year because we’re celebrating 25 years of O’More fashion shows,” said Stephanie Reese, assistant professor of fashion and the O’More College Fashion Show coordinator.
After two semesters of planning and preparation, students and faculty at O’More College are gearing up for the department’s annual fashion show, where junior and senior designers will showcase collections they started drafting in the fall.
“When people think of fashion in a fashion show, they think of these big, extravagant, amazing designs, and that is what it is, but for our school fashion show, it's about the stories that we're telling, along with the hard work that we're displaying,” said Ashlee Elliot, a junior fashion design major.
The show will feature 13 senior designer collections featuring eight pieces each and seven junior collections with five garments each.
Every year, the juniors are prompted to create a collection that caters to an underserved market.
Students interpret this in a variety of ways, like Kaylee Chisholm, who constructed her pieces for children with sensory issues.
“I wanted to challenge myself to make costumes that were cute and functional, but also comfortable,” Chisholm said.
Chisholm’s pieces are inspired by fairytale characters, with each piece representing a different archetype.
“When I was making these designs, I was watching a lot of the old, classic Disney movies; I watched ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and ‘Sleeping Beauty’ and ‘Snow White,’” she said. “I've always just loved very whimsical, fairy-like things, I've always been very drawn to it.”
Since this is the first collection Chisholm has created, she found some unexpected obstacles throughout the process.
“I really was going in blind; I had no idea how it was gonna turn out when the kids actually got here to try them on, so that was a bit of a challenge for me,” she said.
Despite the difficulties, Chisholm said her designs each increasingly got better and pushed her to overcome challenges herself.
“I learned more this year than I have in the past two years combined,” she said.
Another junior designer made the assignment her own by centering her collection on people who struggle with self-image.
“My collection is called Freebird, and it is all about finding oneself and to stop oneself while they’re in the comparison cycle,” said Elliot.
Elliot’s pieces are inspired by both her own struggles with mental health and the nonstop process of comparing oneself to other people, she said.
“It's really hard because we are taught to look at other people, we are taught to find the trends that people are wearing and we're taught to do all these things,” she said. “But, you also need to just make sure that while you're judging essentially all these other people that you're also staying true to yourself and making sure that you don't lose yourself within all of that.”
Elliot’s collection will showcase pieces including “Broken Image” and “Distorted Thoughts” that are inspired by streetwear and tell a linear story from beginning to end.
In addition to the juniors’ assignment to create a five-piece collection, they also individually partner up with one person from a local nonprofit to create a piece that is curated to fit their personal style and needs.
For the 2024–25 academic year, juniors are partnered with Saddle Up!, a program that helps children and youth with disabilities grow and develop through different activities with horses.
“They love to ride horses, but there’s no equestrian clothing for them,” said Reese.
Juniors spend time getting to know who they partner with in order to create a piece that doesn’t just look good on them, but that they will feel comfortable and confident in.
Chisholm was paired with a 7-year-old who uses a wheelchair. After meeting with the child, Chisholm was able to come up with a design that suited her functional needs as well as aesthetic preferences.
“I was like, ‘I'm gonna find a way to give you everything you want because you deserve it,’” she said.
The additional assignment is meant to teach the students how to work with a client and put their needs first, said Andie Day, assistant professor of fashion design.
“What we want to do is get them to think beyond themselves for their customer,” said Day.
Day teaches Design Studio 1 in the fall and Design Studio 2 in the spring, where she mentors junior designers through the creation of their fashion show collections from construction to completion.
The two classes apply the design concepts juniors learned their previous two years and guide them through the process of creating their first runway collection.
“Underserved markets and the runway don’t always go hand-in-hand, so the students have to be really creative with how they approach that,” said Day.
Day prepares juniors to display the important skill of creative design while also constructing pieces that challenge them to develop a strong understanding of their target audience and client.
“There’s a big difference between solving a real-world problem and solving a classroom problem, and the more that we can get students to solve real-world problems, the stronger designers that we think they’ll be,” said Day.
The environment fostered in Day’s class has led to a lot of support in the junior design class, said Chisholm.
“It's really cool seeing what everyone's doing and seeing how successful it's been too,” she said.
Elliot said she is excited for the audience to see the design students’ hard work.
“Every look tells a story, every collection has a meaning,” said Elliot. “And I think that's the coolest part about it.”
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This article was written by Haley Ramsey and Georgina America